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MY SUMMER 



IN A GARDEN, 



BY 



CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 




BOSTON: 

FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 

187 1. 






Entered, according to" Act of Congress, in the year 1870, 

By fields, OSGOOD, & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Eand, Avery, & Frye, Stereotypers and Printers, Boston, 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



11 /TY DEAR MR. FIELDS, — I did prom- 

-^-^ ise to write an Introduction to these 
charming papers ; but an Introduction, — 
what is it? — a sort of pilaste?^ ^ut upon the 
face of a building for look's sake, and usually 
flat,- — very flat. Sometimes it may be called 
a caryatid^ which is, as I understand it, a cruel 
device of architecture, representing a man or 
a woman, obliged to hold up upon his or her 
head or shoulders a structure which they did 
not build, and which could stand just as well 
without as with them. But an Introduction 
is more apt to be a pillar, such as one may see 
in Baalbec, standing up in the air all alone, 
with nothing on it, and with nothing for it 
to do. 

But an Introductory Letter is different. 



Ill 



IV INTR OD UC TOE Y LE TTEB, 

There is in that no formahty, no assumption 
of function, no awkward propriety or dignity 
to be sustained. A letter at the opening of 
a book may be only a footpath, leading the 
curious to a favorable point of observation, 
and then leaving them to wander as they will. 

Sluggards have been sent to the ant for 
wisdom ; but writers might better be sent to 
the spider, — not because he works all night, 
and watches all day, but because he works 
unconsciously. He dare not even bring his 
work before his own eyes, but keeps it be- 
hind him, as if too much knowledge of what 
one is doing would spoil the delicacy and 
modesty of one's work. ' 

Almost all graceful and fanciful work is 
born like a dream, that comes noiselessly, and 
tarries silently, and goes as a bubble bursts. 
And yet somewhere work must come in, — 
real, well-considered work. 

Inness (the best American painter of Na- 
ture in her moods of real human feeling) 
once said, '' No man can do any thing in art, 
unless he has intuitions ; but, between whiles, 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER, ,V 

one must work hard in collecting the materials 
out of which intuitions are made." The 
truth could not be hit off better. Knowl- 
edge is the soil, and intuitions are the flowers 
which grow up out of it. The soil must be 
well enriched and worked. 

It is very plain, or. will be to those who 
read these papers, now gathered up into this 
book, as into a chariot for a race, that the 
author has long employed his eyes, his ears, 
and his understanding, in observing and con- 
sidering the facts of Nature, and in weaving 
curious analogies. Being an editor of^one 
of the oldest daily newspapers in New 
England, and obliged to fill its columns day 
after day (as the village mill is obliged to 
render every day so many sacks of flour or 
of meal to its hungry customers), it naturally 
occurred to him, '' Why not write something 
which I myself, as well as my readers, shall 
enjoy ? The market gives them facts 
enough ; politics, lies enough ; art, affecta- 
tions enough : criminal news, horrors enough ; 



VI INTRODUCTORY LETTER, 

fashion, more than enough of vanity upon 
vanity, and vexation of purse. Why should 
they not have some of those wandering and 
joyous fancies which solace my hours ? '' 

The :suggestion ripened into execution. 
Men and women read, and wanted more. 
These garden letters began to blossom every 
week ; and many hands were glad to gather 
pleasure from them. A sign it was of wis- 
dom. In our feverish days, it is a sign of 
health or of convalescence that men love 
gentle pleasure, and enjoyments that do not 
rush or roar, but distil as the dew. 

The love of rural life, the habit of finding 
enjoyment in familiar things, that suscepti- 
bihty to Nature which keeps the nerve gently 
thrilled in her homeliest nooks and by her 
commonest sounds, is worth a thousand for- 
tunes of money, or its equivalents. 

Every book which interprets the secret lore 
of fields and gardens, every essay that brings 
men nearer to the understanding of the mys- 
teries which every tree whispers, every brook 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER, Vll 

murmurs, every weed, even. Hints, is a con- 
tribution to the wealth and the happiness of 
our kind. And if the lines of the writer 
shall be traced in quaint characters, and be 
filled with a grave humor, or break out at 
times into merriment, all this will be no pre- 
sumption against their wisdom or his good- 
ness. Is the oak less strong and tough 
because the mosses and weather-stains stick 
in all manner of grotesque sketches along its 
bark ? Now, truly, one may not learn from 
.this little book either divinity or- horticulture ; 
but if he gets a pure happiness, and a ten- 
dency to repeat the happiness from the sim- 
ple stores of Nature, he will gain from our 
friend's garden what Adam lost in his, and 
what neither philosophy nor divinity has 
always been able to restore. 

Wherefore, thanking you for listening to a 
former letter, which begged you to consider 
whether these curious and ingenious papers, 
that go winding about hke a half-trodden 
path between the garden and the field, might 



VUl INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

not be given in book-form to your million 
readers, I remain, yours to command in 
every thing but the writing of an Introduc- 
tion, 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 



I^/TY DEAR POLLY,— When a few of 

-^^-^ these papers had appeared in " The 
Courant," I was encouraged to continue 
them by hearing that they had at least one 
reader who read them with the serious mind 
from which alone profit is to be expected. 
It was a maiden lady, who, I am sure, was no 
more to blame for her singleness than for her 
age ; and she looked to these honest sketches 
of experience for that aid which the profes- 
sional agricultural papers could not give in 
the management of the little bit of garden 
which she called her own. She may have 
been my only disciple ; and I confess that the 
thought of her yielding a simple faith to 
what a gainsaying world may have regarded 
with levity has contributed much to give an 

ix 



X BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 

increased practical turn to my reports of 
what I know about gardening. The thought 
that I had misled- a lady, whose age is not 
her only singularity, who looked to me for 
advice which should be not at all the fanciful 
product of the Garden of Gull, would give 
me great pain. I trust that her autumn is a 
peaceful one, and undisturbed by either the 
humorous or the satirical side of Nature. 

You know that tliis attempt to tell the 
truth about one of the most fascinating occu- 
pations in the world has not been without 
its dangers. I have received anonymous 
letters. Some of them were murderously 
spelled; others were missives in such 
elegant phrase and dress, that danger was 
only to be apprehended in them by one 
skUled in the mysteries of mediaeval poison- 
ing, when death flew on the wings of a 
perfume. One lady, whose entreaty that I 
should pause had something of command in 
it, wrote that my strictures on ''pusley " had 
so inflamed her husband's zeal, that, in her 
absence in the country, he had rooted up all 



BY WAY OF DEDICATION. XI 

her beds of portulaca (a sort of cousin of the 
fat weed), and utterly cast it out. It is, 
however, to be expected, that retributive 
justice would visit the innocent as well as 
the guilty of an offending family. This is 
only another proof of the wide sweep of 
moral forces. I suppose that it is as neces- 
sary in the vegetable world as it is elsewhere 
to avoid the appearance of evil. 

In offering you the fruit of my garden, 
which has been gathered from week to week, 
without much reference to the progress of 
the crops or the drought, I desire to 
acknowledge an influence which has lent half 
the charm to my labor. If I were in a court 
of justice, or injustice, under oath, I should 
not like to say, that either in the wooing days 
of spring, or under the suns of the summer 
solstice, you had been, either with hoe, rake, 
or miniature spade, of the least use in the 
garden ; but your suggestions have been in- 
valuable, and, whenever used, have been paid 
for. Your horticultural inquiries have been 
of a nature to astonish the vegetable world, 



xil BY WAY OF DEDICATION. 

if it listened, and were a constant inspiration 
to research. There was almost nothing that 
you did not wish to know ; and this, added to 
what I wished to know, made a boundless 
field for discovery. What might have be- 
come of the garden if your advice had been 
followed, a good Providence only knows ; but 
I never worked there without a consciousness 
that you might at any moment come down 
the walk, under the grape-arbor, bestowing 
glances of approval, that were none the 
worse for not being critical ; exercising a 
sort of superintendence that elevated gar- 
dening into a fine art ; expressing a wonder 
that was as complimentary to me as it was to 
Nature ; bringing an atmosphere which made 
the garden a region of romance, the soil of 
which was set apart for fruits native to climes 
unseen. It was this bright presence that 
filled the garden, as it did the summer, with 
light, and now leaves upon it that tender 
play of color and bloom which is called 
among the Alps the afterglow. c. n. w. 

Nook Fakm, Hartford, October, 1870. 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



PRELIMINARY. 

rriHE love of dirt is among the earliest 
-^ of passions^ as it is the latest. Mud- 
pies gratify one of our first and best in- 
stincts. So long as we are dirty ^ we are 
pure. Fondness for the ground comes 
back to a man after he has run the 
round of pleasure and business^ eaten 
dirt;, and soayu wild-oats^ drifted about 
the worlds and taken the wind of all its 
moods. The love of digging in the 
ground (or of looking on while he pays 
another to dig) is as sure to come back 
to him;, as he is sure^ at last;, to go under 



2 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

the ground^ and stay there. To own a 
bit of ground^ to scratch it with a hoe^ 
to plant seedsj and watch their renewal 
of life^ — this is the commonest delight 
of the race^ the most satisfactory thing a 
man can do. When Cicero writes of the 
pleasures of old age^ that of agriculture 
is chief among them : '^ Venio mine ad 
volitptates agricolaritm^ qiiihics ego in- 
credihiliter delector : qitce nee idla im- 
pediunter seneeticte^ et milii ad sapieniis 
vitam proxime videntur aeeedere'' (I 
am driven to Latin because New- York 
editors have exhausted the English lan- 
guage in the praising of springy, and es- 
pecially of the month of May.) 

Let us celebrate the soil. Most men 
toil that they may own a piece of it ; 
they measure their success in life by their 
ability to buy it. It is alike the passion 
of the paTvenii and the pride of the 
aristocrat. Broad acres are a patent of 



MY SUMMER IiY A GARDEN. 3 

nobility ; and no man but feels more of a 
man in the world if he have a bit of 
ground that he can call his own. ■ How- 
ever small it is on the surface^ it fe four 
thousand miles deep j and that is a very 
handsome property. And there is a 
great pleasure in working in the soil^ 
apart from the OAvnership of it. The 
man who has planted a garden feels that 
he has done something for the good of 
the world. He belongs to the produ- 
cers. It is a pleasure to eat of the fruit 
of one's toil^ if it be nothing more than 
a head of lettuce or an ear of corn. 
One cultivates a lawn even with great 
satisfaction ; for there . is nothing more 
beautiful than grass and turf in our lati- 
tude. The tropics may have their de- 
lights; but they have not turf: and the 
world without turf is a dreary desert. 
The original garden of Eden could not 
have had such turf as one sees in Eno;- 



4 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

land. The Teutonic races all love turf: 
tliey emigrate in the line of its growth. 
To dig in the mellow soil — to dig 
moderately^ for all pleasure should ne 
taken sparingly — is a great thing. One 
gets strength out of the ground as often 
as one really touches it with a hoe. 
Anta3us (this is a classical article) was no 
doubt an agriculturist ; and such a prize- 
fighter as Hercules couldn't do any thing 
with him till he got him to lay down his 
spade^ and quit the soil. It is not simply 
beets and potatoes and corn and string- 
beans that one raises in his well-hoed 
garden : it is the average of human life. 
There is life in the ground ; it goes into 
the seeds ; and it also, when it is stirred 
up, goes into the man who stirs it. The 
hot sun on his back as he bends to 
his shovel and hoe, or contemplatively 
rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is 
better^ than much mqiJicine. The buds 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 5 

are coming out on the bushes round 
about ; the blossoms of the fruit-trees be- 
gin to show ; the blood is running up the 
grape-vines in streams; you can smell 
the wild-flowers on the near bank ; and 
the birds are flying and glancing and 
singing everywhere. To the open kitch- 
en-door comes the busy housewife to 
shake a white something, and stands a 
moment to look, quite transfixed by the 
delightful sights and sounds. Hoeing in 
the garden on a bright, soft May day, 
when you are not obliged to, is nearly 
equal to the delight of going trouting. 

Blessed be agriculture ! if one does not 
have too much of it. 'All literature is 
fragrant with it, in a gentlemanly way. 
At the foot of the charming olive-covered 
hills of Tivoli, Horace (not he of Chap- 
paqua) had a sunny farm : it was in 
sight of Hadrian's villa, who did land- 
scape-gardening <m an extensive scale, 



6 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

and probaloly did not get half as much 
comfort out of it as Horace did from his 
more simply-tilled acres. We trust that 
Horace did a little hoeing and farming 
himself^ and that his verse is not all fraud- 
ulent sentiment. In order to enjoy 
agriculture^ you do not want too much 
of it^ and you want to be poor enough 
to have a little inducement to work mod- 
erately yourself. Hoe while it is springs 
and enjoy the best anticipations. It is 
not much matter if things do not turn 
out well. 



MY SUMMER IN A GAUDEN. 



WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GAEDENING. 

FIRST WEEK. 

"T TNDER this modest title^ I purpose 
^^ to write a series of papers^ some of 
which will be like many papers of gar- 
den-seeds^ with nothing vital in them^ on 
the subject of gardening; holding that 
no man has any right to keep valuable 
knowledge to himself^, and hoping that 
those who come after me^ except tax- 
gatherers and that sort of person^, will 
find profit in the perusal of my experi- 
ence. As my knowledge is constantly 
increasing^ there is likely to be no end 
to these papers. They will pursue no 
orderly system of agriculture or horti- 
culture^ but range from topic to topic, 



8 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

according to the weatlier and the prog- 
ress of the weeds^ which may driA^e me 
from one corner of the garden to the 
other. 

The principal value of a private gar- 
den is not understood. It is not to give 
the possessor vegetables and fruit (that 
can be better and cheaper done by the 
market-gardeners)^ but to teach him pa- 
tience and philosophy^ and the higher vir- 
tueS;, — hope deferred^ and expectations 
blighted^ leading directly to resignation^ 
and sometimes to alienation. The gar- 
den thus becomes a moral agent;, a test 
of character^ as it was in the beginning. 
I shall keep this central truth in mind 
in these articles. I mean to have a 
moral garden^ if it is not a productive 
one^ — one that shall teach, my 
brothers ! my sisters ! the great les- 
sons of life. , 

The first pleasant thing about a gar- 



MY SUMMER m A GARDEN. 9 

den in this latitude is^ that you never 
know when to set it going. If you want 
any thing to come to maturity early^ 
you must start it in a hot-house. If you 
put it out early^ the chances are all in 
favor of gettmg it nipped with frost ; for 
the thermometer will be 90° one day^ 
and go below 32"" the night of the day 
following. Andj if you do not set out 
plants or sow seeds early^ you fret con- 
tinually ; knowing that your vegetables 
will be late^ and that^ while Jones has 
early peas^ you will be watching your 
slow-forming pods. This keeps you in a 
state of miild. When you have planted 
any thing early-, you are doubtful whether 
to 'desire to see it above ground^ or not. 
If a hot day comes^ you long to see the 
young plants ; but^ when a cold north 
wind brings frost, you tremble lest the 
seeds have burst theh^ bands. Your 
spring is passed in anxious doubts and 



10 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

fears^ which are usually realized ; arid so 
a great moral discipline is worked out 
for you. 

Now, there is my corn^ two or three 
inches high this 18th of May^ and ap- 
parently having no fear of a frost. I 
was hoeing it this morning for the first 
time, — it is not well usually to hoe corn 
until about the 18th of May, — when 
Polly came out to look at the Lima 
beans. She seemed to think the poles 
had come up beautifully. I thought 
they did look well : they are a fine set 
of poles, large and well grown^ and stand 
straight. They were inexpensive too. 
The cheapness came about from my cut- 
ing them on another man's land, and he 
did not know it. I have not examined 
this transaction in the moral light of 
gardening ; but I know people in this 
country take great liberties at the polls. 
Polly noticed that the beans had not 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 11 

themselves come up in any proper sense^ 
but that the dirt had got off from them^ 
leaving them uncovered. She thought 
it would be well to sprinkle a slight layer 
of dirt over them ; and I^ indulgently^ 
consented. It occurred to me^, when she 
had gone^ that beans always come up 
that way^ — wrong end first ; and that 
what they wanted was light, and not 
dirt. 

Observation : Woman always did;, from 
the first, make a muss in a garden. 

I inherited with my garden a large 
patch of raspberries. Splendid berry 
the raspberry, when the strawberry has 
gone. This patch has grown into such a 
defiant attitude, that you could not get 
withm several feet of it. Its stalks were 
enormous in size, and cast out long, 
prickly arms in all directions ; but the 
bushes were pretty much all dead. I 
have walked into them a good deal with 



12 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

a pruning-knife ; but it is very much like 
fighting original sin. The variety is one 
that I can recommend. I think it is called 
Brinckley's Orange. It is exceedingly 
prolific, and has enormous stalks. The 
fruit is also said to be good; but that 
does not matter so much, as the plant 
does not often bear in this region. The 
stalks seem to be biennial institutions; 
and as they get about their growth one 
year, and bear the next year, and then 
die, and the winters here nearly always 
kill them, unless you take them into the 
house (which is inconvenient if you have 
a family of small children), it is very dif- 
ficult to induce the plant to flower and 
fruit. This is the greatest objection 
there is to this sort of raspberry. I 
think of keeping these for discipline, and 
setting out some others, more hardy 
sorts, for fruit. 



MY SUMMER IN A GAUDEN, 13 



SECOND WEEK. 

nVTEXT to deciding when to start 
-^^ your garden, the most important 
matter is^ what to put in it. It is diffi- 
cult to decide what to order for dinner 
on a given day : how much more op- 
pressive is it to order in a lump an end- 
less vista of dinners, so to speak ! For^ 
unless your garden is a boundless prairie 
(and mine seems to me to be that when 
I hoe it on hot days), you must make a 
selection, from the great variety of vege- 
tables, of those you will raise in it ; and 
you feel rather bound to supply your 
own table from your o^vn garden, and to 
eat only as you have sown. 

I hold that no man has a right (what- 
ever his sex, of course) to have a gar- 



14 3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

clen to his owii selfish uses. He ought 
not to please himself^ but every man to 
please his neighbor. I tried to have a 
garden that would give general moral 
satisfaction. It seemed to me that no- 
body could object to potatoes (a most 
useful vegetable) ; and I began to plant 
them freely. But there was a chorus of 
protest against them. ^^ You don't want 
to take up your ground with potatoes/' 
the neighbors said : " you can buy pota- 
toes " (the very thing I wanted to avoid 
doing is buying things). ^^What you 
want is the perishable things that you 
cannot get fresh in the market." — "^^ But 
what kind of perishable things ? " A hor- 
ticulturalist of eminence wanted me to 
sow lines of strawberries and raspberries 
right over where I had put my potatoes 
in drills. I had about five hundred straw- 
berry-plants in another part of my gar- 
den ; but this fruit-fanatic wanted me to 



MT SmniEB IX A GABDEY. 15 

turn my whole patch, into vines and run- 
ners. I suppose I could raise strawber- 
ries enough for all my neighbors ;■ and 
perhaps I ought to do it. I had a little 
space prepared for melons^ — musk-mel- 
onSj — which I showed to an experienced 
friend. '* You are not g:oino^ to waste 
TOur Q^round on musk-melons?" he asked. 
^^They rarely ripen in this climate thor- 
oughly, before frost." He had tried for 
years without luck. I resolved to not go 
into such a foolish experiment. But, the 
next day^ another neighbor happened in.. 
'^ Ah ! I see vou are Q:oino' to have mel- 

V CO 

ons. l\l\ familv would rather aive up 
any thing else in the garden than musk- 
melons, — of the nutmeg variety. They 
are the most crrateful thino^s we have on 
the table." So there it was. There was 
no compromise : it was melons^ or no 
melons, and somebody oiiended in any 
case. I half resolved to plant them a 



16 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

little late^, so that they would^ and they 
wouldn't. But I had the same difficulty 
about string-beans (which I detest)^, and 
squash (which I tolerate );, and parsnips, 
and the whole round of green things. 

I have pretty much come to the con- 
clusion, that you have got to put your 
foot down in gardening. If I had actu- 
ally taken counsel of my friends, I should 
not have had a thing growing in the 
garden to-day but weeds. And besides, 
while you are waiting, Nature does not 
wait. Her mind is made up. She 
knows just what she will raise ; and she 
has an infinite variety of early and late. 
The most humiliating thing to me about 
a garden is the lesson it teaches of the 
inferiority of man. Nature is prompt, 
decided, inexhaustible. She thrusts up 
her plants with a vigor and freedom that 
I admire ; and, the more worthless the 
plant, the more rapid and splendid its 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 17 

growth. She is at it early and late, and 
all night ; never tiring, nor showing the 
least sign of exhaustion. 

^^ Eternal gardening is the price of 
liberty/' is a motto that I should put 
over the gateway of my garden, if I 
had a gate. And yet it is not wholly 
true ; for there is no liberty in gar- 
dening. The man who undertakes a 
garden is relentlessly pursued. He 
felicitates himself, that^ when he gets it 
once planted, he will have a season of 
rest and of enjojnnent in the sprouting 
and growing of his seeds. It is a green 
anticipation. He has planted a seed 
that will keep him awake nights ; drive 
rest from his bones, and sleep from his 
pillow. Hardly is the garden planted, 
when he must begin to hoe it. The 
weeds have sprung up all over it in 
a night. They shine and wave in 
redundant life. The docks have almost 



18' MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

gone to seed ; and their roots go deeper 
than conscience. Talk about the Lon- 
don Docks ! — the roots of these are lil^e 
the sources of the Aryan race. And 
the weeds are not all. I awake in the 
morning (and a thriving garden will 
wake a person up two hours before he 
ought to be out of bed)^ and think of 
the tomato-plants^ — the leaves like fine 
lace-work^ owing to black bugs that skip 
around^ and can't be caught. Some- 
body ought to get up before the dew 
is ofF^ (why don't the dew stay on till 
after a reasonable " breakfast ?) and 
sprinkle soot on the leaves. I wonder 
if it is I. Soot is so much blacker than 
the bugs^ that they are disgusted^ and 
go away. You can't get up too early, 
if you have a garden. You must be 
early due yourself, if you get ahead 
of the bugs. I think, that, on the 
whole, it would be best to sit up all 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 19 

night; and sleep day-times. Things 
appear to go on in the night in the 
garden nncommonly. It would be less 
trouble to stay up than it is to get up 
so early. 

I have been settmg out some new 
raspberries, two sorts, — a silver and a 
gold color. How fine they will look on 
the table next year in a cut-glass dish, 
the cream being in a ditto pitcher ! I 
set them four and five feet apart. I set 
my strawberries pretty well apart also. 
The reason is, to give room for the cows 
to run through when they break into 
the garden, — as they do sometimes. A 
cow needs a broader track than a loco- 
motive ; and she generally makes one. 
I am sometimes astonished to see how 
big a space in a flower-bed her foot will 
cover. The raspberries are called Doo- 
little and Golden Cap. I don't lil^e the 
name of the first variety, and, if they 



20 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

do much, shall change it to Silver Top. 
You never can tell what a thing named 
Doolittle will do. The one in the 
Senate changed color^ and got sour. 
They ripen badly^ — either mildew^ or 
rot on the bush. They are apt to John- 
sonize^ — rot on the stem. I shall watch 
the Doolittles. 



i/r SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 21 



THIED WEEK. 

y BELIEVE that I have found, if not 
-^ original sin, at least vegetable total 
depravity in my garden ; and it was 
there before I vrent into it. It is the 
bunch, or joint, or snake-grass, — what- 
ever it is called. As I do not know the 
names of all the weeds and plants, I 
have..to do as Adam did in his garden, — 
name thino\s as I find^- them. This o:rass 
has a slender, beautiful stalk : and when 
you cut it down, or pull up a long*T.^oot 
of it, you fancy it is got rid of; but, in 
a day or two, it will come up in the same 
spot in half a dozen ^ugorous blades. 
Cutting down and pulhng up is what 
it thrives on. Extermination rather 
helps it. If you follow a slender white 



22 MY SUMMER IJV A GARDEN. 

root^ it will be found to run under-tlie 
ground until it meets another slender 
white root; and you will soon unearth 
a network of them^, with a knot some- 
where;, sending out dozens of sharp- 
pointed^ healthy shoots^ every joint 
prepared to be an independent life and 
plant. The only way to deal with it 
is to take one part hoe and two parts 
fingers^ and carefully dig it out^ not 
leaving a joint anywhere. It will take 
a little timO;, say all summer^, to dig 
out thoroughly a small patch; but if 
you once dig it out;, and keep it out^ 
you will have no further trouble. 

I "have said it was total depravity. 
Plere it is. If you attempt to pull up 
and root out any sin in you^ which 
shows on the surface^ — if it does not 
show^ you do not care for it^ — you may 
have noticed how it runs into an interior 
network of sins, and an ever-sprouting 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 23 

brancli of them roots somewhere ; and 
that you cannot pull out one mthout 
making a general internal disturbance, 
and rooting up your whole being. I 
suppose it is less trouble to quietly cut 
them off at the top^ — say once a week, 
on Sunday, when you put on your 
religious clothes and face, — so that no 
one will see them, and not try to eradi- 
cate the network within. 

Eemark, — This moral vegetable figure 
is at the service of any clergjmian who 
will have the manliness to come forward 
and help me at a day's hoeing on my 
potatoes. None but the orthodox need 
apply. 

I, however, believe in the intellectual, 
if not the moral, quahties of vegetables, 
and especially weeds. There was a 
worthless vine that (or who) started up 
about midway between a grape-trellis 
and a row of bean-poles, some three 



24 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

feet from eacli^ but a little nearer the 
trellis. When it came out of the ground, 
it looked around to see what it should 
do. The trellis was already occupied. 
The bean-pole was empty. There was 
evidently a little the best chance of 
lights air^ and sole proprietorship on the 
pole. And the vine started for the 
polC; and began to climb it with deter- 
mination. Here was as distinct an act 
of choice^ of reason^ as a boy exercises 
when he goes into a forest^ and^ looking 
about, decides which tree he will climb. 
And, besides, how did the vine know 
enough to travel in exactly the right 
direction, three feet, to find what it 
wanted ? This is intellect. The weeds, 
on the other hand, have hateful moral 
qualities. To cut down a weed is, 
therefore, to do a moral action. I feel 
as if I were destroying sin. My hoe 
becomes an instrument of retributive 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEJ^, 25 

justice. I am an apostle of Nature. 
This view of the matter lends a dignity 
to the art of hoeing which nothing else 
does^ and lifts it into the region of 
ethics. Hoeing becomes^ not a pastime^ 
but a duty. And you get to regard it 
so^ as the days and the weeds lengthen. 

Ohservation, — Nevertheless^ what a 
man needs in gardening; is a cast-iron 
back;, with a hinge in it. The hoe is 
an ingenious instrument^ calculated to 
call out a great deal of strength at a 
great disadvantage. 

The striped bug has come^ the saddest 
of the year. He is a moral double- 
ender^ iron-clad at that. He is un- 
pleasant in two ways. He burrows in 
the ground so that you cannot find 
him^ and he 'flies away so that you 
cannot catch him. He is rather hand- 
some^ as bugs go, but utterly dastardly ;, 
in that he gnaws the stem of the plant 



26 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

close to the ground; and ruins it without 
any apparent advantage to himself. I 
find him on the hills of cucumbers 
(perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and 
we shall not want any);, the squashes 
(small loss), and the melons (which 
never ripen). The best way to deal 
with the striped bug is to sit doAvn by 
the hills, and patiently watch for him. 
If you are spry, you can annoy him. 
This, however, takes time. It takes 
all day and part of the night. For he 
flyeth in darkness, and wasteth at noon- 
day. If you get up before the dew is 
off the plants, — it goes off very early, — 
you can sprinkle soot on the plant 
(soot is my panacea : if I can get the 
disease of a plant reduced to the neces- 
sity of soot, I am all right) ; and soot 
is unpleasant to the bug. But the best 
thing to do is to set a toad to catch 
the bugs. The toad at once establishes 



MY SUMMER IX A GARDEN, 27 

the most intimate relations witli the 
bug. It is a pleasure to see such unity 
among the lower animals. The diffi- 
culty is to make the toad stay^ and 
watch the hill. If you know your toad, 
it is all right. If you do not, you must 
build a tight fence round the plants, 
which the toad cannot jump over. This, 
however, introduces a new element. I 
find that I have a zoolog-ical D:arden on 
my hands. It is an unexpected result 
of my little enterprise, which never 
aspired to the completeness of the Paris 
^^ Jardin des Plantes." 



28 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



FOUKTH WEEK. 

ORTHODOXY is at a low ebb. Only 
two clergymen accepted my offer 
to come and help hoe my potatoes for 
the privilege of using my vegetable 
total-depravity figure about the snake- 
grass^ or quack-grass as some call it; 
and those two did not bring hoes. 
There seems to be a lack of disposition 
to hoe among our educated clergy. I 
am bound to say that these two^ how- 
ever^ sat and watched my vigorous com- 
bats with the weedS; and talked most 
beautifully about the application of the 
snake-grass figure. As^ for instance^ 
when a fault or sin showed on the surface 
of a man^ whether if you dug down^ you 
would find that it ran back and into the 



MY SUMMER IN A GABDEN. 29 

original organic bunch of original sin 
within the man. The only other clergy- 
man who came was from out of town^ — a 
half Universalist; who said he wouldn't 
give twenty cents for my figure. He 
said that the snake -grass was not in my 
garden originally^ that it sneaked in 
under the sod^ and that it could be en- 
tirely rooted out with industry and pa- 
tience. I asked the Universalist-inclined 
man to take my hoe and try it ; but he 
said he hadn't time^ and went away. 

Butj jubilate J I have got my garden 
all hoed the first time ! I feel as if I 
had put down the rebellion. Only there 
are guerillas left here and there, about 
the borders and in corners, unsub- 
dued, — Forrest docks, and Quantrell 
grass, and Beauregard pig-weeds. This 
first hoeing is a gigantic task : it is 
your first trial of strength with the 
never-sleeping forces of Natm'e. Sev- 



30 MY SUMMER JxY A GABDEN. 

eral times^ in its progress^ I was tempted 
to do as Adam did;, who abandoned his 
garden on account of the weeds. (How 
much my mind seems to run upon 
Adam^ as if there had been only 
two really moral gardens^ — Adam's and 
mme !) The only drawback to my re- 
joicing over the finishing of the first 
hoeing iS; that the garden now wants 
hoeing the second time. I suppose^ if 
my garden were planted in a perfect 
circle^ and I started round it with a 
hoe, I should never see an opportunity 
to rest. The fact is^ that gardening is 
the old fable of perpetual labor; and 
1^ for one 5 can never forgive Adam Sisy- 
phuS;, or whoever it was^, who let in the 
roots of discord. I had pictured my- 
self sitting at eve^ with' my family, in 
the shade of twilight, contemplating a 
garden hoed. Alas ! it is a dream not' to 
be realized in this world. 



3IT SUMMER ly A GABDEN. 31 

My mind has been turned to the sub- 
ject of fruit and shade trees in a gar- 
den. There are those who say that 
trees shade the garden too much; and 
interfere with the growth of the vege- 
tables. There may be something in this : 
but when I go down the potato rows^ the 
rays of the sun glancing upon my shining 
blade, the sweat pouring from my face^, 
I should be grateful for shade. Yfhat is 
a garden for ? The pleasure of man. I 
should take much more pleasure in a 
shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed, 
broiled; roasted, for the sake of the in- 
creased vigor of a few veo;etables ? The 

O CD 

thing is perfectly absurd. If I were 
rich, I think I would have my garden 
covered with an awning, so that it 
would be comfortable to work in it. It 
might roll up and be removable, as the 
great awning of the Eonian Cohseum 
was, — not like the Boston one, which 



32 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

went off in a high wind. Another very 
good way to do^ and probably not so ex- 
pensive as the awning, would be to have 
four persons of foreign birth carry a 
sort of canopy over you as you hoed. 
And there might be a person at each 
end of the row with some cool and re- 
freshing drink. Agriculture is still in a 
very barbarous stage. I hope to live 
yet to see the day when I can do my 
gardening, as tragedy is done, to slow 
and soothing music, and attended by 
some of the comforts I have named. 
These things come so forcibly into my 
mind sometimes as I work, that perhaps, 
when a wandering breeze lifts my straw 
hat, or a bird lights on a near currant- 
bush, and shakes out a full-throated 
summer song, I almost expect to find 
the cooling drink and the hospitable en- 
tertainm^t at the end of the row. But 
I never do. There is nothing to be 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 33 

done but to turn round; and hoe back 
to the other end. 

Speakmg of those yellow squash- 
bugS; I thmk I disheartened them by- 
covering the plants so deep with soot 
and wood-ashes that they could not find 
them ; and I am in doubt if I shall ever 
see the plants again. But I have heard 
of another defence against the bugs. 
Put a fine wire-screen over each hill^ 
which will keep out the bugs and admit 
the rain. I should say that these 
screens would not cost much more than 
the melons you would be likely to get 
from the vines if you bought them ; 
but then think of the moral satisfaction 
of watching the bugs hovering over the 
screen^ seeing^ but unable to reach the 
tender plants within. That is worth 
paying for. 

I left my own garden yesterday^ and 
went over to where Polly was getting 

8 



34 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

the weeds out of one of her flower- 
beds. She was working away at the 
bed with a little hoe. Whether women 
onght to have the ballot or not (and I 
have a decided opinion on that pointy 
which I should here plainly give^ did I 
not fear that it would injure my agricul- 
tural influence);, I am compelled to say 
that this was rather helpless hoeing. 
It was patient^ conscientious^ even 
pathetic hoeing ; but it was neither 
effective nor finished. When com- 
pleted; the bed looked somewhat as if 
a hen had scratched it : there was that 
touching unevenness about it. I think 
no one could look at it and not be 
afiected. To be sure^ Polly smoothed it 
off with a rake^ and asked me if it 
wasn't nice ; and I said it was. It was 
not a favorable time for me to explain 
the diflference between puttering hoe- 
ing; and the broad^ free sweep of the 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 35 

instrument;, which kills the weeds^ 
spares the plants^ and loosens the soil 
without leaving it in holes and hills. 
But^ after all^ as life is constituted^ I 
think more of Polly's honest and 
anxious care of her plants than of the 
most finished gardening in the world. 



36 MY SUMMER ZiY A GARDEN. 



FIFTH WEEK. 

T LEFT my garden for a week^ just at 
-^ the close of the dry spell. A 
season of rain immediately set in^ and 
when I returned the transformation was 
wonderful. In one week^ every vegeta- 
ble had fairly jumped forward. The 
tomatoes which I left slender plants^ 
eaten of bugs and debating whether 
they would go backward or forward, 
had become stout and lusty, with thick 
stems and dark leaves, and some of 
them had blossomed. The corn waved 
like that which grows so rank out of 
the French-English mixture at Yfater- 
loo. The squashes — I will not speak 
of the squashes. The most remarkable 
growth was the asparagus. There was 



MT SUMMER US' A GARDEIT. 37 

not a spear above ground when I went 
away ; and now it had sprung u.p^ and 
gone to seedj and there were stalks 
higher than my head. I am entirely 
aware of the value of words^ and of 
moral obligations. When I say that 
the asparagus had grown six feet in 
seven days, I expect and wish to be 
beheved. I am a little particular about 
the statement ; for^, if there is any prize 
offered for asparagus at the next agri- 
cultural fair^ I wish to compete^ — speed 
to govern. YvTiat I claim is the fastest 
asparagus. As for eating purposes^ I 
have seen better. A neighbor of mine^ 
who looked in at the growth of the 

bed, said, ^^WeU, he'd be :" but I 

told him there was no use of affirming 
now; he might keep his oath till I 
wanted it on the asparagus afl&davit. 
In order to have this sort of asparagus, 
you want to manure heavily in the 



S8 ^ MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN 

early springs fork it in^ and top-dress 
(that sounds technical) with a thick 
layer of chloride of sodium : if you 
cannot get that^ common salt will do^ 
and the neighbors will never notice 
whether it is the orthodox Na. CI. 58.5, 
or not. 

I scarcely dare trust myself to speak 
of the weeds.. They grow as if the devil 
was in them. I know a lady^ a member 
of the churchy and a very good sort 
of woman^ considering the subject 
condition of that class, who savs that 
the weeds work on her to that extent^ 
that^ in going through her garden^ she 
has the greatest difficulty in keeping 
the ten commandments in any thing like 
an unfractured condition. I asked her 
which one ? but she said^ all of them : 
one felt like breaking the whole lot. 
The sort of weed which I most hate 
(if I can be said to hate any thing which 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 39 

grows in my oaytl garden) is the '^ pus- 
ley/' a fat J grouncl-clingingj spreading^ 
greasy things and the most propagations 
(it is not my fault if the word is not 
in the dictionary) plant I know. I saw 
a Chinaman^ who came over with a 
returned missionary, and pretended to 
be converted, boil a lot of it in a pot, 
stir in eggs, and mix and eat it with 
relish, — ''Me likee he.'' It will be a 
good thing to keep the Chinamen on 
when they come to do our gardening. 
I only fear they will cultivate it at the 
expense of the strawberries and melons. 
Who can say that other weeds, which 
we despise, may not be the favorite 
food of some remote people or tribe. 
We ought to abate our conceit. It is 
possible that we destroy in our gardens 
that which is really of most value in 
some other place. Perhaps, in like 
manner, our faults and vices are virtues 



40 ' MY SUMMER IN A GABDEN. 

in some remote planet. I cannot see^ 
however^ that this thought is of the 
slightest value to us here^ any more than 
weeds are. 

There is another subject which is 
forced upon my notice. I like neigh- 
bors;, and I like chickens ; but I do not 
think they ought to be united near a 
garden. Neighbors' hens in your gar- 
den are an annoyance. Even if they 
did not scratch up the corru, and peck 
the strawberries^ and eat the tomatoes, 
it is not pleasant to see them -straddling 
about in their jerkey^, high-stepping, 
speculative manner, picking inquisitively 
here and there. It is of no use to tell 
the neighbor that his hens eat yoiu" 
tomatoes : it makes no impression on 
him, for the tomatoes are not his. The 
best way is to casually remark to him 
that he has a fine lot of chickens, pretty 
well grown, and that you like spring 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDENS 41 

chickens broiled. He will take them 
away at once. The neighbors' small 
children are also out of place in your 
garden, in strawberry and currant time. 
I hope I appreciate the value of children. 
We should soon come to nothing without 
them, though the Shakers have the best 
gardens in the world. Without them 
the common school would languish. 
But the problem is, what to do with 
them in a? garden. For they are not 
good to eat, and there is a law against 
making away with them. The law is 
not very well enforced, it is true ; for 
people do thin them' out with constant 
dosing, paregoric, and soothing-sirups, 
and scanty clothing. But I, for one, 
feel that it would not be right, aside 
from the law, to take the life, even of 
the smallest child, for the sake of a 
little fruit, more or less, in the garden. 
I may be wrong; but these are my 



42 MT SUMMER /iY A GABDEN. 

sentiments^ and I am not ashamed of 
them. When we come^ as Bryant says 
in his ^^Eiad/' to leave the circus of this 
life^ and join that innumerable caravan 
which moves^ it will be some satis- 
faction to us^ that we have never^ in 
the way of gardenings disposed of even 
the humblest child unnecessarily. My 
plan would be to put them into Sunday 
schools more thoroughly^ and to give 
the Sunday schools an agricultural turn ; 
teaching the children the sacredness 
of neiofhbors' vegetables. I think that 
our Sunday schools do not sufficiently 
impress upon children the danger^ from 
snakes and otherwise, of going into the 
neighbors' gardens. 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 43 



SIXTH WEEK. 

SOMEBODY has sent me a new sort 
of hoe;, with the wish that I should 
speak favorably of it^ if I can consist- 
ently. I willingly do so^ but with the 
understanding that I am to be at liberty 
to speak just as courteously of any other 
hoe which I may receive. If I under- 
stand religious morals^ this is the position 
of the religious press with regard 
to bitters and wringing-machines. In 
some cases^ the responsibility of such 
a recommendation is shifted upon the 
wife, of the editor or clergyman. Polly 
says she is entirely willing to make a 
certificate^ accompanied with an affidavit, 
with regard to this hoe; but her habit 
of sitting about the garden-walk, on 



44 MY SUMMER AY A GARDEN. 

an inverted flower-pot, while 1 hoe^ some- 
what destroys the practical value of her 
testimony. 

As to this hoe^ I do not mind saying 
that it has changed my view of the 
desirableness and value of human life. 
It* has^ in fact^ made life a holiday to 
me. It is made on the principle that 
man is an upright^, sensible^ reasonable 
beings and not a grovelling wretch. It 
does away with the necessity of the 
hinge in the back. The handle is seven 
and a half feet long. There are two 
narrow blades^, sharp on both edges^ 
which come together at an obtuse angle 
in front; and as you Avalk along with 
this hoe before you^ pushing and pulHng 
with a gentle motion^ the weeds fall 
at every thrust and withdrawal, and 
the slaughter is immediate and wide- 
spread. When I got this hoe, I was 
troubled with sleepless mornings/ pains 



MY SUMMER ly A GARDE]^. 45 

in the back^ kleptomania mth regard to 
new weeders; when I went into my 
garden^ I was always sure to see some- 
thing. In this disordered state of mind 
and body^ I got this hoe. The morning 
after a day of usiiig it^ I slept perfectly 
and late. I regained my respect for 
the eighth commandment. After two 
doses of the hoe in the garden^ the 
weeds entirely disappeared. Trying it 
a third mornings I was obliged to throw 
it over the fence in order to save from 
destruction the green things that ought 
to grow in the garden. Of com^se^ this 
is figurative language. What I mean is, 
that the fascination of using this hoe 
is such^ that you are sorely tempted 
to employ it upon your vegetables^ after 
the weeds are laid low^ and must hastily 
withdraw it, to avoid unpleasant results. 
I make this explanation, because I in- 
tend to put nothing into these agricul- 



46 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

tural papers that will not bear the 
strictest scientific investigation ; nothing 
that the youngest child cannot under- 
stand and cry for; nothing that the 
oldest and wisest men will not need to 
study with care. 

I need not add; that the care of a gar- 
den with this hoe becomes the merest 
pastime. I would not be without one 
for a single night. The only danger is^ 
that you may rather make an idol of the 
hoe^ and somewhat neglect your garden 
in explaining it^ and fooling about with 
it. I almost think^ that^ with one of 
these in the hands of an ordinary day- 
laborer^ you might see at night where 
he had been working. 

Let us have peas. I have been a 
zealous advocate of the birds. I have 
rejoiced in their multiplication. I have 
endured their concerts at four o'clock in 
the morning without a murmur. Let 



MY SUMMER IX A GAB DEN. 47 

them eome. I said; and eat tlie worms, 
in order that we, later, may enjoy the 
fohage and the fruits of the earth. We 
have a cat, a magnificent animal, of the 
sex Trhich votes (but not a pole-cat), — 
solargaand powerful, that, if he were in 
the armv, he would be called Lono; Tom. 
He is a cat of fine disposition, the most 
uTeproachable morals I ever saw thrown 
away in a cat, and a splendid hunter. 
He spends his nights, not in social dissi- 
pation, but in gathering in rats, mice, 
flying-squnTels, and also birds. "When 
he first brought me a buxl, I told him 
that it was wrong, and tried to convince 
him, while he was eating it, that he was 
doing wrong ; for he is a reasonable 
cat, and understands pretty much every 
thing except the binomial theorem and 
the time down the cycloidal arc. But 
with no effect. The killing of bh-ds 
went on to my great regret and shame. 



48 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN: 

The other day^ I went to my garden 
to get a mess of peas. I had seen^ the 
day before^ that they were just ready to 
pick. How I had hned the ground^ 
planted, hoed, bushed them ! The 
bushes, were very fine, — seven feet high, 
and of good wood. How I had delight- 
ed in the growing, the blowing, the 
podding ! What a touching thought it 
was that they had all podded for me ! 
When I went to pick them, I found the 
pods all split open, and the peas gone. 
The dear little birds, who are so fond 
of the strawberries, had eaten them 
all. Perhaps there were left as many as 
I planted : I did not count them. I 
made a rapid estimate of the cost of 
the seed, the interest of the ground, 
the price of labor, the value of the 
bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watch- 
fulness. I looked about me on the face 
of Nature. The wind blew from the 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEJST. 49 

south SO soft and treacherous ! A thrush 
sang in the woods so deceitfully ! All 
Nature seemed fair. But who was to 
give me back my peas ? The fowls of 
the air have peas ; but what has man ? 

I went into the house. I called Cal- 
vin. (That is the name of our cat, 
given him on account of his gravity ;> 
morality, and uprightness. We never 
familiarly call him John.) I petted 
Calvin. I lavished upon him an enthu- 
siastic fondness. I told him that he 
had no fault ] that the one action that 
I had called a vice was an heroic exhi- 
bition of regard for my interests.- I 
bade him go and do likewise con- 
tinually. I now saw how much better 
instinct is than mere vmguided reason. 
Calvin knew. If he had put his opinion 
into English (instead of his native cat- 
alogue), it would have been: ^^You 
need not teach your grandmother to 

4 



50 MY SUMMER iJN^ A GARDEN, 

suck eggs." It was only the round of 
Nature. The worms eat a noxious 
something in the ground. The birds 
eat the worms. Calvin eats the buTls. 
We eat — no^ we do not eat Calvin. 
There the chain stops. When you 
ascend the scale of being;, and come to 
an animal that is^ like ourselves^ inecli- 
ble^ you have arrived at a result where 
you can rest. Let us respect the cat. 
He completes an edible chain. 

I have little heart to discuss methods 
of raising peas. It occurs to me that I 
can have an iron pea-bush^ a sort of 
trellis^ through which I could discharge 
electricity at frequent intervals, and 
electrify the birds to death when they 
alight ; for they stand upon my beau- 
tiful brush in order to pick out the peas. 
An apparatus of this kind, with an 
operator, would cost, however, about as 
much as the peas. A neighbor suggests, 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 51 

that I might put up a scarecrow near the 
vines^ which would keep the birds away. 
I am doubtful about it : the birds are 
too much accustomed to seeing a person 
in poor clothes in the garden to care 
much' for that. Another neighbor 
suggests^ that the birds do not open 
the pods ] that a sort of blasts apt to 
come after rain^ splits the pods^ and the 
birds then eat the peas. It may be so. 
There seems to be complete unity of 
action between the blast and the birds. 
But good neighbors^ kind friends^, I 
desire that you will not increase^ by 
talk; a disappomtment which you cannot 
assuage. 



52 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



SEVENTH WEEK- 

A GARDEN is an awful responsibil- 
-^-^ ity. You never know what you 
may be aiding to grow in it. I heard a 
sermon^, not long ago^ in which the 
preacher said that the Christian^ at the 
moment of his becoming one^ was as 
perfect a Christian as he would be if he 
grew to be an archangel; that is^ that 
he would not change thereafter at all^ 
but only develop. I do not know 
whether this is good theology ;, or not ; 
and I hesitate to support it by an illus- 
'tration from my garden^ especially as I 
do not want to run the risk of propa- 
gating error^ and I do not care to give 
away these theological comparisons to 
clergymen who make me so little return 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 53 

in the way of labor. But I find^ in dis- 
secting a pea-blossom^ that hidden in the 
centre of it is a perfect miniature pea- 
pod^ mth the peas all in it^ — as perfect 
a pea-pod as it will ever be ; only it is 
as tiny as a chatelaine ornament. Make 
and some other things show the same 
precocity. This confirmation of the 
theologic theory . is startling^ and sets 
me meditating upon the moral possibili- 
ties of my garden. I may find in it yet 
the cosmic egg. 

Andj speaking of moral things^ I am 
half determined to petition the (Ecu- 
menical Council to issue a bull of ex- 
communication against ^^pusley." Of 
all the forms which ^* error" has taken 
in this worlds I think that is about the 
worst. In the middle ages^ the monks 
in St. Bernard's ascetic community at 
Clairvaux excommunicated a vineyard 
which a less rigid mojak had planted 



54 MY SUMMER US' A GARDEN. 

near^ so that it bore nothing. In 1120^ 
a bishop of Laon excommunicated the 
caterpillars in his diocese ; and^ the fol- 
lowing year;, St. Bernard excommunicat- 
ed the flies in the Monastery of Foigny ; 
and in 1510 the ecclesiastical court pro- 
nounced the dread sentence against the 
rats of Autun^ Macon^ and Lyons.. These 
examples are sufficient precedents. It 
will be well for the council^ however^ 
not to publish the bull either just before 
or just after a rain ; for nothing can kill 
this pestilent heresy when the ground 
is wet. 

It is the time of festivals. Polly says 
we ought to have one^, — a strawberry- 
festival. She says they are perfectly 
delightful: it is so nice to get people 
together ! — this hot weather. They cre- 
ate such a good feeling ! I ^myself am 
very fond of festivals. I always go^ — 
when I can consistently. Besides the 



MY SUMMER J^ A GARDEN, 55 

strawberries^ there are ice-creams and 
cake and lemonade^ and that sort of 
thing; and one always feels so well the 
next day after such a diet ! But as ^so- 
cial re-unions^ if there are good things 
to eat^ nothing can be pleasanter ; and 
they are very profitable^ if you have a 
good object. I agreed that we ought to 
have a festival; but I did not know 
what object to devote it to. We are 
not in need of an organ^ nor of any pulpit- 
cushions. I do not know as they use 
pulpit-cushions now as much as they 
used to^ when preachers had to have 
something soft to pounds so that they 
would not hurt their fists. I suggested 
pocket-handkerchiefs^ and flannels for 
next winter. But Polly says that will 
not do at all. You must have some 
charitable object^ — ^ something that ap- 
peals to a vast sense of something ; 
something that it will be right to get up 



56 MT SUMMER US' A GARDEN, 

lotteries and tliat sort of tiling for. I 
suggest a festival for the benefit of my 
garden; and this seems feasible. In 
order to make every thing pass off pleas- 
antly^ invited guests will bring or send 
their o^yn strawberries and cream^ which 
I shall be happy to sell to them at a slight 
advance. There are a great many im- 
provements which the garden needs; 
among them a sounding-board^, so that the 
neighbors' children can hear when I tell 
them to get a little farther off from the 
currant-bushes. I should also like a se- 
lection from the ten commandments^, in 
big letters^, posted up conspicuously, and 
a few traps, that will detain, but not 
maim, for the benefit of those who can- 
not read. But what is most important 
is, that the ladies should crochet nets to 
cover over the strawberries. A good- 
sized, well-manaoi:ed festival ouo;ht to 
produce nets enough to cover my entire 



31 Y SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 57 

beds; and I can think of no other 
method of preserving the berries from 
the birds next year, i wonder how 
many strawberries it would need for a 
festival; and whether they would cost 
more than the nets. 

I am more and more impressed^ as the 
summer, goes on^ with the inequality of 
man's fight with Nature ; especially in a 
civilized state. In savagery ^ it does not 
so much matter ; for one does not take a 
square hold^ and put out his strength, 
but rather accommodates himself to the 
situation^ and takes what he can get^ 

s 

without raising any dust^ or putting 
himself into everlasting opposition. But 
the minute he begins to clear a spot lar- 
ger than he needs to sleep in for a 
night, and to try to have his own way in 
the least. Nature is at once up, and vigi- 
lant, and contests him at every step with 
all her ingenuity and unwearied vigor. 



58 3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

This talk of subduing Nature is pretty 
mucli nonsense. I do not intend to 
surrender in 1die midst of the summer 
campaign^ yet I cannot but think how 
much more peaceful my relations would 
now be with the primal forces^ if I had 
let Nature make the garden according 
to her own notion. (This is written 
with the thermometer at ninety degrees, 
and the weeds starting up with a fresh- 
ness and vigor;, as if they had just 
thought of it for the first time, and had 
not been cut down and dragged out 
every other day since the snow went 
off.)' 

We have got down the forests, and 
exterminated savage beasts ; but Nature 
•is no more subdued than before : she 
only changes her tactics, — - uses smaller 
guns, so to speak. She re-enforces her- 
self with a variety of bugs, worms, and 
vermin, and weeds, unknown to the sav- 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 59 

age state^ in order to make war upon 
the things of our planting; and calls 
in the fowls of the air^ just as we think 
the battle is won^ to snatch away the 
booty. When one gets almost weary of 
the strug:Q:le, she is as fresh as at the 
beginning, — -just/in fact, ready for the 
fray. I, for my part, begin to appreci- 
ate the value of frost and snow ; for 
they give the husbandman a little peace, 
and enable him, for^ season, to contem- 
plate his incessant foe subdued. I do 
not wonder that the tropical people, 
where Natin*e never goes to sleep, give 
it up, and sit in lazy acquiescence. 

Here I have been working all the 
season to make a piece of lawn. It had 
to be graded and sowed and rolled ; and 
I have' been shaving it like a barber. 
When it was soft, every thing had a ten- 
dency to go on to it, — cows, and espe- 
cially wandering hackmen. Ilackmen 



^. 



60 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

(who are a product of civilization) know 
a lawn when they see it.. They rather 
have a fancy for it^ and always try to 
drive so as to cnt the sharp borders of 
it^ and leave the marks of Iheir wheels 
in deep rnts of cut-up^ ruined turf. The 
other mornings I had just been running 
the mower over the lawn^ and stood 
reo:ardino: its smoothness, when I noticed 
onC;, twO;, three puffs of fresh earth in it ; 
and^ hastening thither^ I found that the 
mole had arrived to complete the work 
of the hackmen: In a half-hour^ he had 
rooted up the ground like a pig. I 
found his run-ways. I waited for him 
with a spade. He did not appear; but^ 
the next time I passed by^ he had 
ridged the ground in all directions^ — a 
smooth; beautiful animal^, with fur like 
silk; if you could only catch him. He 
appears to enjoy the lawn as much as 
the hackmen did. He does not care 



M7 SUMMER m A GARDEN, 61 

how smooth it is. He is constantly 
minings and ridging it up. I am not 
sure but he could be counter-mined. I 
have half a mind to put powder in here 
and there;, and blow the whole thing 
into the air. Some folks set traps for 
the mole j but my moles never seem to 
go twice in the same place. I am not 
sure but it would bother them to sow 
the lawn with interlacing snake-grass 
(the botanical name of which^, somebody 
writes me^ is devil-grass: the first 
time I have heard that the Devil has a 
botanical name)^ which would worry 
them, if it is as difficult for them to get 
through it as it is for me. 

I do- not speak of this' mole in any 
tone of complaint. He is only a part of 
the untiring resources which Nature 
brings against the humble gardener. I 
desire to write nothing against him 
which I should wish to recall at the last^ 



62 MY SUMMER IX A GARDEN. 

— nothing foreign to the spirit of that 
beautiful saying of the dying boy^ '' He 
had no copy-book^ which^ dyings he was 
sorry he had blotted." 



MY SUMMER /.Y A GARDEN. 63 



EIGHTH WEEK. 

n\ /TY garden has been visited by a 
-^^-^ High Official Person. President 
G — nt was here just before the Fourth;, 
getting his mind quiet for that event 
by a few days of retirement^ staying 
with a friend at the head of our street ; 
and I asked him if he wouldn't like to 
come down our way Sunday afternoon^ 
and take a plain^ simple look at my gar- 
den^ eat a httle lemon ice-cream and 
jelly-cake^ and drink a glass of native 
l^ger-bier. * I thought of putting up 
over my gate^ '' Yf elcome to the Na- 
tion's Gardener ;" but I hate nonsense^ 
and didn't do it. I, however^ hoed dil- 
igeiitly on Saturday : what weeds I 
couldn't remove I buried^ so that every 



64 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, * 

thing would look all right. The borders 
of my drive were trimmed with scissors ; 
and every thing that could offend the 
Eye of the Great was hustled out of the 
way. 

In relating this interview^ it must be 
distinctly understood that I am not 
responsible for any thing that the presi- 
dent said ; nor is he^ either. He is not 
a great speaker ; but whatever he says 
has an esoteric and an exoteric meaning ; 
and some of his remarks about- my 
vegetables went very deep. I said 
nothing to him whatever about politics^ 
at which he seemed a good deal siir- 
prised : he said it was the first garden 
he had ever been in^ with a man^ Avhen 
the talk was not of . appointments. I 
told him that this was purely vege- 
table ; after which he seemed more at 
his ease^ axid^ in fact^ delighted with 
every thing he saw. He was mifch 



MY SUMMER IN A GABDEX. 65 

interested in my strawberry-beds, asked 
what varieties I had. and requested me 
to send him some seed. He said the 
patent-office seed was as difficult to 
raise as an appropriation for the St. 
Domingo business. The playful bean 
seemed also to please him ; and he said 
he had never seen such impressive corn 
and potatoes at this time of year ; that 
it was to him an unexpected pleasure^ 
and one of the choicest memories that 
he should take away with him of his 
visit to Xew England. 

N.B. — That corn and those potatoes 
which Gen. Gr — nt looked at, I will sell 
for seed, at fiye dollars an ear. and one 
dollar a potato. Office-seekers need not 
apply. 

Knowing the president's great desire 
for peas. I kept hhn from that part of 
the garden where the vines grow. But 
they could not be concealed. Those who 



66 3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

say that the president is not a man easily 
moved* are knaves or fools. When he 
saw my pea-pods^ ravaged by the birds^ 
he burst into tears. A man of war^ he 
knows the value of peas. I told him 
they were an excellent sort, "^ The Cham- 
pion of England." As quick as a flash, 
he said; — 

" Why don't you call them ^^The Eev- 
erdy Johnson " ? 

It was a very clever hon-mot ; but I 
changed the subject. 

The sight of my squashes, with stalks 
as big as speaking-trumpets, restored the 
president to his usual spirits. He said 
the summer squash was the most ludi- 
crous vegetable he knew. It was nearly 
all leaf and blow, with only a sickly, 
crook-necked fruit after a mighty fuss. 
It reminded him of the member of Con- 
gress from ; but I hastened to 

change the subject. 



MY SUMMER I.Y A GARDEN, 67 

As we walked along, the keen eye of 
the president rested upon some hand- 
some sprays of '' pnsley/' which must 
have grown up since Saturday night. It 
was most fortunate ; for it led his excel- 
lency to speak of the Chinese problem. 
He said he had been struck with one cou- 
pling of the Chinese and '^ pusley " in one 
of my agricultural papers ; and it had a 
significance more far-reaching than I had 
probably supposed. He had made the 
Chinese problem a spe'cial study. He 
said that I was right in saying that 
^^ pusley" was the natural food of 
the Chinaman, and that where the 
" pusley" was there would the Chinaman 
be also. For his part, he welcomed 
the Chinese emigration : we needed the 
Chinaman in our gardens to eat the 
^^ pusley;" and he thought the whole 
problem solved by this simple considera- 
tion. To get rid of rats and '^ pusley," he 



68 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

/ 

said^ was a necessity of our civilization. 
He did not care so much about the shoe- 
business ; he did not think that the lit- 
tle Chinese shoes that he had seen would 
be of service in the army : but the gar- 
den-interest was quite another affair. 
We want to make a garden of our whole 
country : the hoe^ in the hands of a man 
truly great;, he was pleased to say^ was 
mightier than the pen. He presumed 
that Gen. B — tl — ^r had never taken into 
consideration the garden-question^ or he 
would not assume the position he does 
with regard to the Chinese emigration. 
He would let the Chinese come^ eve'n 
if B — tl — ^r had to leave^ I thought he 
was going to say^ but I changed the sub- 
ject. 

During our entire garden interview 
(operatically speakings the garden-scene), 
the president was not smoking. I do not 
know how the impression arose that he 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 69 

" uses tobacco in any form ; " for I have 
seen him several times, and he T^as not 
smoking. Indeed^ I offered him a Con- 
necticut six ; but he Tsittily said that he 
did not like a weed in a garden, — a re- 
mark which I took to have a personal 
political bearing, and changed the sub- 
ject. 

The president was a good deal sur- 
prised at the method and fine appear- 
ance of mv oTirden, and to learn that I 
had the sole care of it. He asked me if 
I pursued an original course, or whether 
I got my ideas from writers on the sub- 
ject. I told him that I had had no 
time to read any thing on the subject 
since I began to hoe, except '' Lothair," 
from which I got my ideas of landscape- 
gardening ; and that I had worked the 
garden entirely according to my own 
notions, except that I had borne in mind 
his injunction, *• to fight it out on this line 



70 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

if" — The president stopped me ab- 
ruptly ;, and said it was unnecessary to 
repeat that remark : he thought 'he had 
heard it before. Indeed^ he deeply re- 
gretted that he had ever made it. 
Sometimes^ he said^ after hearing it in 
speeches^ and coming across it in resolu- 
tions^ and reading it in newspapers^ and 
having it dropped jocularly by facetious 
politicians^ who were boring him for an 
office^ about twenty-five times a day^ say 
for a month;, it y/ould get to running 
through his head^ like the ^^ shoo-fly " 
song which B — tl — r sings in the House, 
until it did seem as if he should go dis- 
tracted. He said, no man could stand 
that kind of sentence hammering on his 
brain for years. 

The president was so much pleased 
with my management of the garden, 
that he offered me (at least, I so under- 
stood him) the position of head gardener 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 71 

at the White House ^ to have care of 
the exotics. I told him that I thanked 
hini; but that I did not desire any 
foreign appointment. I had resolved^ 
when the administration came in^, not 
to take an appointment ; and I had kept 
my resolution. -As to any home oJ0&ce; 
I was poor^ but honest ; and;, of course^ 
it would be useless for me to take one. 
The president mused a moment^ and 
then smiled^ and said he wouJd see 
what could be done for me. I did 
not change the subject; but nothing 
further was said by Gen. Gr — nt. 

The president is a great talker (con- 
trary to the general impression) ; but 
I think he appreciated his quiet hour 
in my garden.* He said it carried him 
back to his youth farther than any 
thing he had seen lately. ^He looked 
forward with dehght to the time when 
he could agptin have his private garden^, 



72 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

grow his own lettuce and tomatoes^, and 
not have to get so much ^^sarce" from 
Congress. 

The chair in which the president sat, 
while declining to take a glass of lager, 
I have had destroyed, in order that 
no one may sit in it. • It was the only 
way to .save it, if I may so speak. It 
would have been impossible to keep 
it from use by any precautions. There 
are people who would have sat in it, 
if the seat had been set with iron spikes. 
Such is the adoration of Station. 



MY SUMMER IJY A GARDEN. 73 



NINTH WEEK. 

nr AJM-inore and more impressed mth 
-^ the moral qualities of vegetables^ 
and contemplate forming a science 
which shall rank with comparative 
anatomy and comparative philology ;, — 
the science of comparative vegetable 
morality. We live in an age of proto- 
plasm. And^ if life-matter is essentially 
the same in all forms of life^ I purpose 
to begin early^ and ascertain the n'ature 
of the plants for. which I am responsible. 
I will not associate with any vegetable 
which is disreputable^ or has not some 
quality that can contribute to my moral 
growth. I do not care to be seen much 
with the squashes or the dead-beets. 
Fortunately I can cut down any sorts 



74 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

I do not like with the hoe, and, probably, 
commit no more sin in so doing, than 
the Christians did in hewing down the 
Jews in the middle ages. 

This matter of vegetable rank has not 
been at all studied as it should be. 
Why do we respect some vegetables, 
and despise others, when all of them 
come to an equal honor or ignominy on 
the table ? The bean is a graceful, 
confiding, engaging vine ; but you 
never can put beans into poetry, nor 
into the highest sort of prose. There 
is no dignity in the bean. Corn, which, 
in niy garden, grows alongside the 
bean, and, so far as I can see, with no 
affectation of superiority, is, however, 
the child of song. It waves in all 
literature. But mix it with beans, and 
its high tone is gone. Succotash is 
vulgar. It is the bean in it. The bean 
is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, 



3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 75 

or any flavor of high society among 
vegetables. Then there is the cool 
cucumber^ lil^e so many people^ — good 
for nothing when it is ripe and the 
wildness has gone out of it. How infe- 
rior in quality it is to the melon^ which 
grows upon a similar vine^ is of a like 
watery consistency^ but is not half so 
valuable ! The cucumber is a sort of 
low comedian in a company where the 
melon is a minor gentleman. I might 
also contrast the celery with the potato. 
The associations are as opposite as 
the dining-room of the duchess and the 
cabin of the peasant. I admire the 
potato^ both in vine and blossom; but 
it is not aristocratic. I began digging 
my potatoes^, by the way^ about the 
4th of July; and I fancy I have dis- 
covered the right way to do it. I treat 
the potato just as 1 would a cow. I 
do not pull them up, and shake them 



76 MT SUMMER I^ A GARBEN. 

out^ and destroy tliem ; but I dig care- 
fully at the side of the hill^ remove 
the fruit which is grown^ leaving the 
vine undisturbed : and my theory is, 
that it will go on bearings and sub- 
mitting to my exactions, until the frost 
cuts it down. It is a game that one 
would not undertake with a vegetable 
of tone. 

The lettuce is to me a most interest- 
ing study. Lettuce is hke conversation : 
it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling, 
that you scarcely notice the bitter in 
it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is, how- 
ever, apt to run rapidly to seed. 
Blessed is that sort which comes to a 
head, and so remains, hke a few people 
I know; growing more solid and satis- 
factory and tender at the same time, 
and whiter at the centre, and crisp in 
their maturity. Lettuce, like conver- 
sation, requires a good deal of oil, to 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 77 

avoid friction^ and keep the company 
smooth ; a pinch of attic salt ; a dash 
of pepper; a quantity of mustard and 
vinegar^, by all means^ but so mixed 
that you will notice no sharp contrasts ; 
and a trifle of sugar. You can put any 
thing, and the more things the better, 
into salad, as into a conversation; but 
every thing depends upon the skill of 
mixing. I feel ttiat I am in the best 
society when I am with lettuce. It 
is m the select circle of vegetables. 
The tomato appears well on the table ; 
but you do not want to ask its origin. 
It is a most agreeable parveiiit. Of 
course, I have said nothing about the 
berries. They live in another and more 
ideal region ; except, perhaps, the cur- 
rant. Here we see, that, even among 
berries, there are de^ees of breeding;. 
The currant is w^ell enough, clear as 
truth, and exquisite in color ; but I ask 



78 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

you to notice how far it is from the 
exclusive hcmteitr of the aristocratic 
strawberry^ and the native refinement 
of the quietly elegant raspberry. 

I do not know that chemistry^ search- 
ing for protoplasm^ is able to discover 
the tendency of vegetables. It can 
only be found out by outward observa- 
tion. I confess that I am suspicious of 
the beaU;, for instance. "* There are signs 
in it of an unregulated life. I put up 
the most attractive sort of poles for my 
Limas. They stand high and straight^ 
like church-spires^ in my theological 
garden^ — lifted up; and some of them 
have even budded^ like Aaron's rod. 
No church-steeple in a New-England 
village was ever better fitted to draw 
to it the rising generation on Sunday, 
than those poles to lift up my beans 
towards heaven. Some of them did run 
up the sticks seven feet, and then 



MY SUMMER m A GARDEN, 79 

straorcjled off into the air in a wanton 
manner ; but more than half of them 
went galivanting off to the neighboring 
grape-trelliS; and wound their tendrils 
with the tendrils of the grape^ with a 
disregard of the proprieties of life 
which is a satire upon human nature. 
And the grape is morally no bettter. I 
think the ancients^, who were not 
troubled with the recondite mystery of 
protoplasm^ were right in the mythic 
union of Bacchus and Venus. 

Talk about the Darwinian theory of 
development^ and the principle of 
natural selection ! I should like to see a 
garden let to run in accordance with it. 
If I had left my vegetables and weeds 
to a free fight^, in which the strongest 
specimens only should come to maturi- 
ty, and the weaker go to the wall, I can 
clearly see that I should have had a pret- 
ty mess of it. It would have been a scene 



80 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

of passion and license and brntality. 
The ^^pnsley " would have strangled the 
strawberry ; the upright corn^ which has 
now ears to hear the guilty beating of 
the hearts of the children who steal the 
raspberries^ would haye been dragged 
to the earth by the wandering bean ; 
the snake-grass would have left no place 
for the potatoes under ground ; and the 
tomatoes would have been swamped by 
the lusty weeds. With a firm hand^ I 
have had to make my own ^^ natural 
selection." Nothing will so well bear 
watching as a garden^ except a family 
of children next door. Their power of 
selection beats mine. If they could 
read half as well as they can steal a 
while away^ I should put u]d a notice^ 
''Children^ beware ! There is Protoplasm 
here.'' But I suppose it would have no 
effect. I believe they would eat proto- 
plasm as quick as any thing else^ ripe 



MY SUMMER ly A GAELEN. 81 

or D;reen, I Tronder if this is a^oincc to 

O CO 

be a cliolera-vear. Considerable cholera 
is the only thing; that wolild let my 
apples and pears ripen. Of course I do 
not care for the fruit ; but I do • not 
want to take the responsibility of letting 
so much •• hfe-matter." full of crude and 
eyen wicked yecretable-human tenden- 
cieS; pass into the composition of the 
neighbors' children, some of whom may 
be as immortal as snake-oTass. There 

o 

ought to be a pubhc meeting about this^ 
and resolutions, and perhaps a clam- 
bake. At least, it ought to be put into 
the catechism^ and put in strong. 



82 MY SUMMER m A GARDEN, 



TENTH WEEK. 

T THINK I have discovered the way 
-^ to keep peas from the birds. I 
tried the scare-crow plan^ in a way 
which I thought would out-wit the 
shrewdest bird. The brain of the bird 
is not large ; but it is all concentrated on 
one object^ and that is the attempt to 
elude the devices of modern civihzation 
which injure his chances of food. I 
knew^ that;, if I put up a complete stuffed 
maU;, the bird would detect the imita- 
tion at once : the perfection of the thing 
would show him that it was a trick. 
People always overdo the matter when 
they attempt deception. I therefore 
hung some loose garments^ of a bright 
color^, upon a rake-head^ and set them 



MY SUMMER IJV A GARDEN. 83 

up among the vines. The supposition 
waSj that the bird would think there was 
an effort to trap hini^ that there was a 
man behind, holding up these garments, 
and would slug, as he kept at a 
distance, ^^ You can't catch me with any 
such double device." The bird would 
know, or think he knew, that I would 
not hang up such a scare, in the ex- 
pectation that it would pass for a man, 
and deceive a bird • and he would there- 
fore look for a deeper plot. I expected 
to out- wit the bird by a duplicity that 
was simplicity itself. I may have over- 
calculated the sagacity and reasoning 
power of the bird. At any rate, I did 
over-calculate the aniount of peas I 
should gather. 

But my game was only half plaj^ed. 
In another part of the garden were other 
peas, growing and blowing. To these I 
took good care not to attract the atten- 



84 M7 SUMMER JiY A GARDEN', 

tion of the bird by any scare-crow what- 
ever ! I left the old scare-crow con- 
spicuously flaunting above the old vines ; 
and by this means I hope to keep the 
attention of the birds confined to that 
side of the garden. I am convinced that 
this is the true use of a scare-crow : it is 
a lure^ and not a warning. If you wish 
to save men from any particular vice^ 
set up a tremendous cry of- warning 
about some other ; and they will all give 
their special efforts to the one to which 
attention is called. This profound truth 
is about the only thing I have yet real- 
ized out of my pea-vines, 

However^ the garden does begin to 
yield. I know of nothing that makes 
one feel more complacent^, in these July 
dayS;, than to have his vegetables from 
his o^yn garden. What an effect it has 
on the market-man and the butcher ! It 
is a kind of declaration of independence. 



3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 85 

The market-man sliows me his peas and 
beets and tomatoes, and supposes he 
shall send me out some with the meat. 
" No, I thank you/' I say carelessly : " I 
am raising my own this year." Whereas 
I have been wont to remark, " Your ve- 
getables look a little wilted this wea- 
ther/' I now say, ^^ "What a fine lot of 
vegetables you've got ! " When a man 
is not going to buy, he can afford to be 
generous. To raise his own vegetables 
makes a person feel, somehow, more lib- 
eral. I think the butcher is touched by 
the influence, and cuts off a better roast 
for me. The butcher is my friend when 
he sees that I am not wholly dependent 
on him. 

It is at home, however, that the effect 
is most marked, though sometimes in a 
way that I had not expected. I have 
never read of any Roman supper that 
seemed to me equal to a dinner of my 



86 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

own vegetables ; when every thing on 
the table is the product of my own la- 
bor^ except the clams^ which I have not 
been able to raise yet^ and the chickens^ 
which have withdrawn from the garden 
just when they were most attractive. It 
is strange what a taste you suddenly have 
for things you never liked before. The 
squash has always been to me a dish of 
contempt; but I eat it now as if it were 
my best friend. I never cared for the 
beet or the bean ; but I fancy now that 
I could eat them all, tops and all, so 
completely have they been transformed 
by the soil in which they grew. I think 
the squash is less squashy, and the beet 
has a deeper hue of rose, for my care of 
them. 

I had begun to nurse a good deal of 
pride in presiding over a table whereon 
was the fruit of my honest industry. 
But woman ! — John Stuart Mill is right 



^' 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 87 

when he says that we do not know any 
thing about women. Six thousand years 
is as one day with them. I thought I 
had something to do with those ve- 
getables. But when I saw Polly seated 
at her side of the table^ presiding 
over the new and susceptible vegetables^ 
flanked by the squash and the beans, and 
smiling upon the green corn and the new 
potatoes, as cool as the cucumbers which 
lay sliced in ice before her, and when 
she began to dispense the fresh dishes, I 
saw at once that the day of my destiny 
was over. You would have thought 
that she owned all the vegetables, and 
had raised them all from their earliest 
years. Such quiet, vegetable airs ! Such 
gracious appropriation ! At length I 
said, — 

" Polly, do you know who planted that 
squash, or those squashes ? " 

^^ James, I suppose." 



88 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

'^' Well^ yes^ perhaps James did plant 
them^ to a certain extent. But who 
hoed them ?" 

^^We did." 

'' We did ! " I said in the most sarcas- 
tic manner. " And I suppose we put on 
the sack-cloth and ashes^ when the 
striped bug came at four o'clock^ A. M., 
and we watched the tender leaves^ and 
watered night and morning the feeble 
plants. I tell you^ Polly/' said I^ un- 
corking the Bordeaux raspberry vinegar^ 
" there is not a pea here that does not 
represent a drop of moisture wrung 
from my brow^ not a beet that does not 
stand for a back-ache^ not a squash that 
has not caused me untold anxiety y and 
I did hope — but I will say no more." 

Observation. — In this sort of family 
discussion^ ^^ I will say no more " is the 
most effective thing you can close up 
with. 



MY SUMMER US'- A GARDEN, 89 

I am not an alarmist. I hope I am as 
cool as anybody this hot summer. But 
I am quite ready to say to PoUy^ or any 
other woman^ " You can have the ballot ; 
only leave me the vegetables^ or^ what is 
more important^ the consciousness of 
power in vegetables." T see how it is. 
Woman is now supreme in the house. 
She already stretches out her hand to 
grasp the garden. She will gradually 
control every thing. Woman is one of 
the ablest and most cunning creatures 
who have ever mingled in human affairs. 
I understand those women who say they 
don't want the ballot. They purpose to 
hold the real power^ while we go through 
the mockery of making laws. They 
want the power without the responsi- 
bility. (Suppose my squash had not 
come up, or my beans — as they threat- 
ened at one time — had gone the wrong 
way : where would I have been ? ) We 



90 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

are to be held to all the responsibilities. 
Woman takes tlie lead in all the depart- 
ments^ leaving us politics only. And 
what is politics ? Let me raise the vege- 
tables of a nation^ says Polly ;, and I care 
not who makes its politics. Here I sat 
at the table; armed with the ballot^ but 
really powerless among my own vege- 
tables. While we are being amused by 
the ballot; woman is quietly taking 
things into her own hands. 



3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 91 



ELEVENTH WEEK. 

T3EEHAPS, after aU, it is not what you 
-^ get out of a garden^ but what you put 
into it; that is the most remunerative. 
What is a man ? A question frequently 
asked; and never^ so far as I know^ satis- 
factorily answered. He commonly spends 
his seventy years^ if so many are given 
him; in getting ready to enjoy himself. 
How many hours, how many minuteS; 
does one get of that pure content 
which is happiness ? I do not mean 
lazinesS; which is always discontent ; but 
that serene enjoyment; in which all the 
natural senses have easy play, and the 
unnatural ones have a holiday. There 
is probably nothing.^ that has such a tran- 
quillizing effect; and leads into such con- 



92 3IT SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

tent; as gardening. By gardenings I do 
not mean that insane desire to raise ve- 
getables whicli some have ] but the phil- 
osophical occupation of contact with the 
earthy and companionship with gently 
growing things and patient processes ; 
that exercise which soothes the spirit, 
and develops the deltoid muscles. 

In half an hour I can hoe myself right 
away from this worlds as we commonly 
see it;, into a large place where there are 
no obstacles. AYhat an occupation it is for 
thought! The mind 'broods like a hen 
on eggs. The trouble is^ that you are 
not thinking about any thing, but are 
really vegetating like the plants around 
you. I begin to know what the joy of 
the grape-vine is in running up the trel- 
lis;, which is similar to that of the squirrel 
in running up a tree.^ We all have some- 
thing in our nature that requires contact 
with the earth. In the solitude of gar- 



MY SUMMER ly A GARDEN. 93 

clen-labor, one gets into a sort of com- 
munion with the vegetable life^ which 
makes the old mythology possible. For 
instance ; I can believe that the dry acts 
are plenty this sinnmer: my garden is 
like an ash-heap. Almost all the mois- 
ture it has had in weeks has been the 
sweat of honest mdustrv. 

The pleasure of gardening in these 
days^ when the thermometer is at ninety^ 
is one that I fear I shall not be able to 
make intelligible to my readers, many 
of whom do not appreciate the delight 
of soaking in the sunshine. I suppose 
that the sun, g;oinQ^ throuQ:h a man, as it 
will on such a day, takes out of him 
rheumatism, constimption, and every 
other disease, except sudden death — 
from sun-stroke. But, aside from this, 
there is an odor from the evergreens, 
the hedges, the various plants and vines, 
that is only expressed and set afloat at a 



94 MY SUMMER IN A GABDEK. 

high temperature^ which is delicious; 
and^ hot as it may be^ a little breeze will 
come at intervals^ which can be heard in 
the tree-tops^ and which is an unobtru- 
sive ^ benediction. I hear a quail or two 
whistling in the ravine ; and there is a 
good deal of fragmentary conversation 
going on among the birds^, even on the 
warmest days. The companionship of 
Calvin^ also^ counts for a good deal. He 
usually attends me^ unless I work too 
long in one place; sitting down on the 
turf;, displaying the ermine of his breast^ 
and watching my movements with great 
intelligence. He has a feline and genu- 
ine love for the beauties of Nature^ and 
will establish himself where there is a 
good vieWj and look on it for hours. He 
always accompanies us when we go to 
gather the vegetables^ seeming to be de- 
sirous to know what we are to have for 
dinner. He is a connoisseur in the gar- 



MY SUMMER IJSf A GARDEN, 95 

den ; being fond of almost all the vege- 
tables;, except the cucumber^ — a dietetic 
hint to man. /I believe it is also said 
that the pig will not eat tobacco. These 
are important facts. It is singular^ how- 
ever^ that those who hold np the pigs as 
models lib us never hold ns up as models 
to the pigs, j 

I wish I knew as much about natural 
history and the habits of animals as 
Calvin does. He is the closest observer 
I ever saw ; and there are few species of 
animals on the place that he has not 
analyzed. I think that he has^ to use a 
euphemism very a]3plicable to him^ got 
outside of every one of them^ except 
the toad. To the toad he is entirely 
indifferent; but I presume he knows 
that the toad is the most useful animal 
in the garden. I think the Agricultural 
Society ought to offer a prize for the 
finest toad. When Polly comes to sit in 



96 3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

the shade near my strawbeiTy-beds;, to 
shell peas^ Calvin is always lying near in 
apparent obliviousness; but not the 
slightest unusual sound can be made in 
the bushes^ that he is not alert^, and pre- 
pared to investigate the cause of it. It 
is this habit of observation^ so cultivated, 
which has given him such a trained 
mind, and made him so philosophicaL 
It is within the capacity of even the 
humblest of us to attain this. 

And, speaking of the philosophical 
temper, there is no class of men whose 
society is more to be desired for this 
quality than that of plumbers. They 
are the most agreeable men I know ; 
and the boys in the business begin to be 
agreeable very early. I suspect the se- 
cret of it is, that they are agreeable by 
the hour. In the dryest days, my foun- 
tain became disabled : the pipe was 
stopped up. A couple of plumbers, 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN 97 

with the implements of their craft;, came 
out to view the situation. There was 
a good deal of difference of opinion 
about where the stoppage was. I found 
the plumbers perfectly ^yilling to sit 
down and talk about it^, — talk by the 
hour. Some of their guesses and re- 
marks were exceedingly ingenious ; and 
their general observations on other sub- 
jects were excellent in their way^, and 
could hardly have been better if they 
had been made by the job. The work 
dragged a little — as it is apt to do by 
the hour. The plumbers had occasion to 
make me several visits. Sometimes 
they would find^ upon arrival^ that they 
had forgotten some indispensable tool; 
and one would, go back to the shop^ a 
mile and a half;, after it ; and his com- 
rade would await his return with the 
most exemplary patience^ and sit down 
and talk;, — always by the hour. I do 

7 



98 3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

not know but it is a habit to have some- 
thing wanted at the shop. They seemed 
to me very good workmen^ and always 
wilUng to stop and talk about the job^ 
or any thing else^ when I went near 
them. Nor had they any of that im- 
petuous hurry that is said to be the 
bane of our American civilization. To 
their credit be it said; that I never ob- 
served any thing of it in them. They 
can afford to wait. Two of them will 
sometimes wait nearly half a day while 
a comrade goes for a tool. They are 
patient and philosophical. It is a great 
pleasure to meet such men. One only 
wishes there was some work he could do 
for tJie77i by the hour. There ought to 
be reciprocity. I think they have very 
nearly solved the problem of Life : it is 
to work for other people^ never for 
yourself;, and get your pay by the hour. 
You then have no anxiety^ and little 



3IY SUMMER IX A GARDEN. 99 

work. If you do things by the job^ 
you are perpetually driven : the hours 
are scourges. If you work by the hour^ 
you gently sail on the stream of Time, 
which is always bearing you on to the 
haven of Pay^, whether you make any ef- 
fort^ or not. Working by the hour tends 
to make one moral. A plumber working 
by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty^ 
refractory nut^ in a cramped position^ 
where the tongs continually slipped o% 
would swear ; but I never heard one of 
them swear^ or exhibit the least impa- 
tience at such a vexation^, working by the 
hour. Nothing can move a man who is 
paid by the hour. How sweet the jflight 
of time seems to his calm mind ! 



100 'MY SUMMER m A GARDEN. 



TWELFTH WEEK. 

■^l /TR. HORACE GREELEY, the intro- 
-^-^ duction of whose name confers an 
honor upon this page (although I ought 
to say that it is used entn*ely without 
his consent), is my sole authority in 
agriculture. Li politics, I do not dare to 
follow him ; but in agriculture he is irre- 
sistible. When, therefore, I find him a'd- 
vising Western farmers not to hill up their 
corn, I think that his advice must be po- 
litical. You must hill up your corn. 
People always have hilled up their corn. 
It would take a constitutional amend- 
ment to change the practice, that has 
pertained ever since maize was raised. 
" It will stand the drought better," says 
Mr. Greeley, " if the grotmd is left level.'' 



MY SUMMER ly A GARDEN. 101 

I have corn in my garden^ ten and 
t-vvelve feet higli^ strong and lusty, 
standing the drought lil^e a grenadier ; 
and it is hilled. In advising this rad- 
ical change, Mr. Greeley evidently has 
a political purpose. He might just as 
well say that you should not hill beans, 
when everybody knows that a ''- hill of 
beans" is one of the most expressive 
symbols of disparagement. When I be- 
come too lazy to hill my corn, I, too, shall 
go into politics. ' 

I am satisfied that it is useless to try 
to cultivate ^^pusley." I set a little of 
it one side, and gave it some extra care. 
It did not thrive as well as that which I 
was fighting. The fact is, there is a spirit 
of moral perversity in the plant, which 
makes it grow the more, the more it is 
interfered with. I am satisfied of that. 
I doubt if any one has raised more 
^''pusley" this year than I have; and 



102 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

my warfare with it has been continual. 
Neither of us has slept much. If you 
combat it^ it will grow^ to use an ex- 
pression that will be understood by 
many^ like the devil. I have a neigh- 
bor^ a good Christian man^ benevolent, 
and a person of good judgment. He 
planted next to me an acre of turnips 
recently. A few days after, he went to 
look at his crop ; and he found the en- 
tire ground covered with a thick and 
luxurious (?arpet of ^^pusley/' with a 
turnip-top worked in here and there as 
an ornament. I have seldom seen so 
thrifty a field. I advised my neighbor 
next time to sow '' pusley ; " and then he 
might^get a few turnips. I wish there 
was more demand in our city markets 
for ^^ pusley" as a salad. I can recom- 
mend it. 

. It does not take a great man to soon 
discover, that, in raising any thing, the 



3IT SmniER US' A GARDEN. 103 

greater part of the plants goes into stalk 
and leaf, and the fruit is a most incon- 
siderable portion. I plant and hoe a 
hill of corn : it grows green and stout, 
and waves its broad leaves high in the 
air, and is months in perfecting itself, 
and then yields us not enough for a 
dinner. It grows because it delights to 
do so, — to take the juices out of my 
ground, to absorb my fertilizers, to wax 
luxmiant, and disport itself in the sum- 
mer air, and with very little thought of 
making any return to me. I might go 
all through my garden and fruit-trees 
with a similar result. I have heard of 
places where there was very little land 
to the acre. It is universally true, that 
there is a great deal of vegetable show 
and fuss for the result produced. I do 
not complain of this. One cannot 
expect vegetables to be better than men : 
and they make a great deal of osten- 



104 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

tatious splurge ; and many of tliem come 
to no result at last. Usually^ the more 
show of leaf and wood^ the less fruit. 
This melancholy reflection is thrown in 
here in order to make dog-days seem 
cheerful in comparison. 

One of the minor pleasures of life is 
that of controlling vegetable activity 
and aggressions with the pruning-knife. 
Vigorous and rapid growth is, however, 
a necessity to the sport. To prune 
feeble plants and shrubs is like acting 
the part of dry-nurse to a sickly orphan. 
You must feel the blood of Nature bound 
under your hand, and get the thrill of 
its life in your nerves. To control and 
culture a strong, thrifty plant, in this 
way, is like steering a ship under full 
headway, or driving a locomotive with 
your hand on the lever, or pulling the 
reins over a fast horse when his blood 
and tail are up. I do not understand, 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 105 

by the way^ the pleasure of the jockey in 
setting up the tail of the horse artificial- 
ly. If I had a horse with a tail not 
able to sit up^ I should feed the horse^ 
and curry him into good spirits^ and let 
him set up his own tail. When I see a 
poor; spiritless horse going by with an 
artificially set-up tail^ it is only a signal 
of distress. I desire to be surrounded 
only by healthy^ vigorous plants and 
treeS; which require constant cutting-in 
and management. Merely to cut away 
dead branches is like perpetual attend- 
ance at a funeral; and puts one in low 
spirits. I want to have a garden and 
orchard rise up and meet me every 
morning; with the request to " lay on^ 
Macduff." I respect old age ; but an 
old currant-bush; hoary with mossy 
bark; is a melancholy spectacle. 

I suppose the time has come when I 
am expected to say something about 



106 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

fertilizers : all agriculturists do. When 
you plants you think you cannot fertilize 
too much : when you get the bills for 
the manure^ you think you cannot fer- 
tilize too little. Of course^ you do not 
expect to get the value of the manure 
back in fruits and vegetables ; but 
something is due to science^ — to chem- 
istry in particular. You must have a 
knowledge of soils^ must have your soil 
analyzed; and then go into a course of 
experiments to find what it needs. It 
needs analyzings — that^ I am clear 
about : every thing needs that. You 
had better have the soil analyzed before 
you buy : if there is " pusley " in it^ let 
it alone. See if it is a soil that requires 
much hoeing; and how fine it will get 
if there is no rain for two months. But 
when you come to fertilizing, if I under- 
stand the agricultural authorities^ you 
open a pit that will ultimately swallow 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 107 

you up^ — farm and all. It is the great 
subject of modern times^, how to fer- 
tilize without ruinous expense ; hoW;, in 
shorty not to starve the earth to death 
while we get our living out of it. 
Practically^ the business is hardly to the 
taste of a person of a poetic turn of 
mind. The details of fertilizing are not 
agreeable. Michael Angelo^ who tried 
every art^ and nearly every trade^ never 
gave his mind to fertilizing. It is much 
pleasanter and easier to fertilize with a 
pen, as the agricultural writers do, than 
with a fork. And this leads me to say, 
that, in carrying on a garden yourself, 
you must have a '^ consulting " gardener ; 
that is, a man to do the heavy and 
unpleasant work. To such a man, I say, 
in language used by Demosthenes to the 
Athenians, and which is my advice to all 
gardeners, '' Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize ! " 



108 3fY SUMMER IN A GABDEN, 



THIRTEENTH WEEK. 

T" FIND that gardening has unsurpassed 
-^ advantages for the study of natural 
history ; and some scientific facts have 
come under my own observation^ which 
cannot fail to interest naturalists and 
un-naturalists in about the same degree. 
Much^ for instance;, has been written 
about the toad;, an animal without Avhich 
no garden would be complete. But 
little account, has been made of his 
value, : the beauty of his eye alone has 
been dwelt on ; and little has been said 
of his mouth, and its important function 
as a fly and bug trap. His habits, and 
even his origin, have been misunder- 
stood. Wljy, as an illustration, are 
toads so plenty after a thunder-shower ? 



MY SUMMEM IJV A GARDEN. 109 

All my life long, no one has been able 
to answer me that question. Why 
after a heavy shower^ and in the midst 
of it, do snch multitudes of toads, espe- 
cially little ones, hop about on the gravel- 
walks ? For many years, I believed that 
they rained down; and I suppose many 
people think so still. They are so small, 
and they come in such numbers only in 
the shower, that the supposition is not 
a violent one. ^^ Thick as toads after a 
shower," is one of our best proverbs. 
I asked an explanation of this of a 
thoughtful woman, — indeed, a leader in 
the great movement to have all the 
toads hop in any direction,' without any 
distinction of sex or religion. Her 
reply was, that the toads come out 
during the shower to get water. This, 
however, is not the fact. I have dis- 
covered that they come out not to get 
water. I deluged a dry flower-bed, the 



110 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

other night, with pailful after pailful of 
water. Instantly the toads came out 
of their holes in the dirt, by tens and 
twenties and fifties, to escape death by 
drowning. The big ones fled away in a 
ridiculous streak of hopping; and the 
little ones sprang about in the wildest 
confusion. The toad is just like any 
other land animal: when his house is 
full of water, he quits it. These facts, 
with the drawings of the water and the 
toads, are at the service of the distin- 
guished scientists of Albany in New 
York, who were so much impressed by 
the Cardiff Giant. 

The domestic cow is another animal 
whose ways I have a chance to study, 
and also to obliterate in the garden. 
One of my neighbors has a cow, but no 
land ; and he seems desirous to pasture 
her on the surface of the land of other 
people : a very reasonable desire. The 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 111 

man proposed that he should be allowed 
to cut the grass from my grounds for 
his cow. I knew the cow^ havmg often 
had her in my garden; knew her gait 
and the size of her feet^, which struck 
me as a little large for the size of the 
body. Having no cow myself^ but 
acquaintance with my neighbor's^ I told 
him that I thou2:ht it would be fair for 
him to have the grass. He was^ there- 
fore^ to keep the grass nicely cut^ and 
to keep his cow at home. I waited 
some time after the gra*ss needed cut- 
ting ; and^ as my neighbor did not ap- 
pear^ I hired it cut. No sooner was it 
done^ than he promptly appeared^ and 
raked up most of it^ and carried it away. 
He had evidently been waiting that 
opportunity. When the grass grew 
again^ the neighbor did not appear with 
his scythe ; but one morning I found the 
cow tethered on the sward^ hitched near 



112 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

the clothes-horse^ a short distance from 
the house. This seemed to be the 
man's idea of the best way to cut the 
grass. I dishked to have the cow there^ 
because I knew her inclination to pull up 
the stake^ and transfer her field of mow- 
mg to the garden^ but .especially 
because of her voice. She has the most 
melancholy ^^ moo " I ever heard. It 
is like the wail of one un-infallible^ ex- 
communicated^ and los.t. It is a most 
distressing perpetual reminder of the 
brevity of life and the shortness of 
feed, It is unpleasant to the family. 
We sometimes hear it in the middle of 
the night; breaking the silence lil^e a 
suggestion of coming calamity. It is as 
bad as the howling of a dog at a funeral. 
I told the man about it; but he 
seemed to think that he was not respon- 
sible for the cow's voice. I then told 
him to take her away ; and he did^, at 



3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN 113 

intervals^ shifting her to different parts 
of the grounds in mv absence^ so that 
the desolate voice Avould startle ns from 
unexpected quarters. K I were to un- 
hitch the cow^ and turn her loose^ I 
knew where she would go. If I were 
to lead her away.^ the question was^ 
Where ? for I did not fancy leading a 
cow about till • I could find somebody 
who was willing to pasture her. To this 
dilemma had my excellent neighbor 
reduced me. But I found him^ one 
Sunday morning, — a day when it would 
not do to get angry, — -tying his cow at 
the foot of the hill ; the beast all the 
time going on in that abominable voice. 
I told the man that I could not have the 
cow in the grounds. He said, '' All right, 
boss ; " but he did not go away. I 
asked him to clear out. The man, who 
is a French sympathizer from the Re- 
public of Ireland, kept his temper per- 

8 



114 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

fectly. He said he wasn't doing any 
thing, just feeding his cow a bit : he 
wouldn't make me the least trouble in 
the world. I reminded him that he had 
been told again and again not to come 
here ; that he might have all the grass, 
but he should not bring his cow upon 
the premises. The imperturbable man 
assented to every thing that I said, and 
kent on feeding; his cow. Before I 
got him to go to fresh scenes and pas- 
tures new, the sabbath was almost 
broken : but it was saved by one thing ; 
it is difficult to be emphatic when no 
one is emphatic on the other side. The 
man and his cow have taught me a 
great lesson, which I shall recall when I 
keep a cow. I can recommend this cow, 
if anybody wants one, as a steady 
boarder, whose keeping will cost the 
owner little ; but, if her milk is at all 
like her voice, those who drink it are on 
the straight road to limacy. 



MY SUMMER ly A GABDEX. ^ 115 

I think I have said that vre nave a 
game-preserve. Vre keep quails, or try 
to^ in the thickly wooded^ bushed^ and 
brushed ravine. This bird is a great 
favorite with us, dead or alive, on ac- 
count of its tasteful plumage, its tender 
flesh, its domestic virtues, and its 
pleasant piping. Besides, although I 
appreciate toads and covrs, and all that 
sort of thing, I like to have a game- 
preserve more in the English style. 
And we did. For in July, while the 
game-law was on, and the young quails 
were coming on, we were awakened one 
morning by firing, — musketry - firing, 
close at hand. My first thought was, 
that war was declared ; but, as I should 
never pay much attention to war de- 
clared at that time in the morning, I 
went to sleep again. But the occurrence 
was repeated, — and not only early in 
the mornino', but at night. There was 



116 MT SUMMER IN A GARDEN 

calling of dogs^ breaking down of brushy 
and firing of guns. It is hardly pleasant 
to have guns fired in the direction of 
the house^ at your own quails. The 
hunters could be sometimes seen^ but 
never caught. Their best time was 
about sunrise ; but^ before one could 
dress and get to the fronts they would 
retire. 

One morning, about four o'clock, I 
heard the battle renewed. I sprang 
up, but not- in arms, and went to a 
window. Polly (hke another ^^ blessed 
damozel") flew to another window, — 

" The blessed damozel leaned out 
From the gold bar of heaven," — 

and reconnoitred from behind the 
blinds. 

" The wonder was not yet quite gone 
From that still look of hers," 

when an armed man and a legged dog 



3IY SUMMER US' A GABDEJ^. 117 

appeared in the opening. I was vigi- 
lantly watching him. 

" And now 
She spoke through the still weather." 

^^Are you afraid to speak to him?" 
asked Polly. Not exactly^ 

*' she spoke as when 
The stars sang in theu* spheres." 

Stung by this inquiry^ I leaned out 
of the window till 

" The bar I leaned on (was) warm," 

and criedj — 

'^ Halloo^ there I What are you- do- 






?" 



" Look out he don't shoot you/' called 
out Polly from the other window^ sud- 
denly going on another tack. 

I explained;, that a sportsman would 
not be likely to shoot a gentleman in 
his own house^ with bird-shot, so long 
as quails were to be had. 



118 3IT SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

'' You have no business here : what 
are you after ? " I repeated. 

^^ Looking for a lost hen/' said the 
man as he strode away. 

The reply was so satisfactory and 
conclusive^, that I shut the blinds^ and 
went to bed. 

But one evening I overhauled one of 
the poachers. Hearing his dog in the 
thicket^ I rushed through the brushy and 
came in sight of the hunter as he was 
retreating down the road. He came 
to a halt ; and we had some conversation 
in a high key. Of course^ I threatened 
to prosecute him. I believe that is the 
thing to do in such cases; but how I 
was to do it^ when I did not know his 
name or ancestry^ and couldn't see his 
face^ never occurred to me. (I remem- 
ber^ now^ that a farmer once proposed 
to prosecute me when I was fishing in a 
trout-brook on his farm^ and asked my 



MY SUMMER IX A GARDEN. 119 

name for that purpose.) He said he 
should smile to see me prosecute him. 
" You can't do it : there ain't no 

s 

notice up about trespassing." This view 
of the common law impressed me ; and 
I said^ — 

^^But these are private grounds." 

" Private h — ! " was all his response. 

You can't argue much with a man 
who has a gun in his hands^ when you 
have none. Besides^ it might be a 
needle-gun^ for aught I knew. I gave 
it up, and we separated. 

There is this disadvantage about hav- 
ing a game-preserve attached to your 
garden : it makes life too lively. 



120 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



FOURTEENTH WEEK. 

"T"N these golden latter August days^ Na- 
-^ ture has come to a serene equilibrium. 
Having flowered and fruited^ she is en- 
joying herself. I can see how things 
are going: it is a do^yn-hill business after 
this ; but;, for the time being;, it is like 
swinging in a hammock^ — such a deli- 
cious air^ such a graceful repose ! I take 
off my hat as I stroll into the garden 
and look about ; and it does seem as if 
Nature had sounded a truce. I didn't 
ask for it. I went out with a hoe ; 
but the serene sweetness disarms me. 
Thrice is he armed who has a long- 
handled-hoC;, with a double blade. Yet 
to-day I am almost ashamed to appear 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 121 

in such a belligerent fashion^ with this 
terrible mitrailleuse of gardening. 

The tomatoes are getting tired of 
ripenings and are beginning to go into a 
worthless condition^ — green. The cu- 
cumbers cumber the ground^ — great yel- 
low^ over-ripe objects^ no more to be com- 
pared to the crisp beauty of their youth 
than is the fat swine of the sty to the 
clean little pig. The nutmeg-melons, 
having covered themselves with deli- 
cate lace-work^ are now ready to leave 
the vine. I know they are ripe if they 
come easily off the stem. 

Moral Ohservatioiis. — You can tell 
when people are ripe by their willing- 
ness to let go. Richness and ripeness 
are not exactly the same. The rich are 
apt to hang to the stem with tenacity. 
I have nothing against the rich. If I 
were not virtuous^ I should like to be 
rich. But we cannot have every thing, 



122 MY SUMMER m A GARDEN. 

as the man said when he was down with 
small-pox and cholera^ and the yellow- 
fever came into the neighborhood. 

NoW; the grapes^ soaked in this liquid 
gold^ called air, begin to turn^ mindful 
of the injunction^ '^ to turn or burn." 
The clusters under the leaves are getting 
quite purple^ but look better than they 
taste. I think there is no danger but 
they will be gathered as soon as they are 
ripe. One of the blessings of having an 
open garden is^ that I do not have to 
watch my fruit : a dozen youngSiters do 
that^ and let it waste no time after 
it matures. I wish it were^ possible to 
grow a variety of grape like the explo- 
sive bullets^ that should explode in the 
stomach : the vine would make such a 
nice border for the garden^ — a masked 
battery of grape. The pears^ too^ are 
getting russet and heavy;" and here and 
there amid the shining leaves^, one 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 123 

gleams as ruddy as the cheek of the 
Nutbrown Maid. The Flemish Beauties 
come off readily from the stem^, if I take 
them in my hand : they say all kinds of 
beauty com.e off by handling. 

The garden is peace as much as if it 
were an empire. Even the man's cow 
lies do^yn under the tree where the man 
has tied her, with such an air of content- 
ment; that I have small desire to disturb 
her. She is chewing my cud as if it 
were hers. Well, eat on and chew on, 
melancholy brute. I have not the heart 
to tell the man to take you away : and it 
would do no good if I had ; he wouldn't 
do it. The man has not a taking way. 
Munch on, ruminant creature. The frost 
will soon come ; the grass will be brown. 
I will be charitable while this blessed lull 
continues; for our benevolences must 
soon be turned to other and more distant 
objects, — the amelioration of the condi- 



124 3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

tion of the Jews^ the education of the- 
ological young men in the West^ and 
the like. 

I do not know that these appearances 
are deceitful; but I sufficiently know 
that this is a wicked worlds to be glad 
that I have taken it on shares. In fact^ 
I could not pick the pears alone^ not to 
speak of eating them. When I climb 
the treeS; and throw down the dusky 
fruity Polly catches it in her apron; near- 
ly always^ however^ letting go when it 
dropSj the fall is so sudden. The sun 
gets in her face ; and^ every time a pear 
comes down, it is a surprise, like having 
a tooth out, she says. 

" If I couldn't hold an apron better 
than that ! " — But the sentence is not 
finished : it is useless to finish that sort 
of a sentence in this delicious weather. 
Besides, conversation ig dangerous. As, 
for instance, towards evening I am pre- 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 125 

paring a bed for a sowing of turnips^ — 
not that I like turnips in the least ; but 
this is the season to sow them. Polly 
comes out^ and extemporizes her usual 
seat to '^ consult me " about matters 
while I work. I well know that some- 
thing is coming. 

" This is a rotation of crops^ isn't it ? " 

" Yes : I have rotated the gone-to-seed 
lettuce off; and expect to rotate the tur- 
nips in ; it is a political fashion." 

" Isn't it a shame that the tomatoes 
are all getting ripe at once ? What a 
lot of squashes ! I wish we had an oys- 
ter-bed. Do you want me to help you 
any more than I am helping ? " 

" No; I thank you." (I wonder what 
all this is about ?) 

'^ Don't you think we could sell some 
strawberries next year ? " 

" By all meanSj sell any thing. We 
shall no doubt get rich out of this acre." 



126 MY SUMMER IN A GABDEN. 

^^ Don the foolish.'' 

And now ! 

" Don't }^u think it would be nice 
to have a?" — And Polly unfolds a 
small scheme of benevolence^ which is 
not quite enough to break me^ and is 
really to be executed in an economical 
manner. " Wouldn't that be nice ? " 

" Oh^ yes ! And where is the money 
to come from ? " 

'' I thought we had agreed to sell the 
strawberries." 

'' Certainly. But I think we would 
make more money if we sold the plants 
now." 

^^AYell/' said Polly^ 'concluding the 
whole matter^ "\ am going to do it." 
And^ having thus " consulted " me^ Polly 
goes away; and I put in the turnip- 
seeds quite thick;, determined to raise 
enough to sell. But not even this mer- 
cenary thought can ruffle my mind as I 



3IY SUMjIER IX A GARDEN. 127 

rake off the loamy bed. I notice , how- 
ever; that the spring smell has gone out 
of the dirt. That went into the first 
crop. 

In this peaceful unison with yielding 
nature^ I was a little taken aback to 
find that a new enemy had turned up. 
The celery had just rubbed through the 
fiery scorching of the droughty and 
stood a faint chance to grow ; when I 
noticed on the green leaves a big green- 
and-black worm, called, I believe, the 
celery-worm : but I don't know who 
called him ; I am sure I did not. It was 
• almost ludicrous that he should turn up 
here, just at the- end of the season, when 
I supposed that my war with the living 
animals was over. Yet he was, no 
doubt, predestinated ; for he went to 
work as cheerfully as if he had arrived 
in June, when every thing was fresh 
and vigorous. It beats me — -Nature 



128 3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

does. I doubt not^, tliat^, if I were to 
leave my garden now for a week^ it 
wouldn't know me on my return. The 
patch I scratched over for the turnips^ 
and left as clean as earthy is already full 
of ambitious ^^pusley/' which grows 
with all the confidence of youth and the 
skill of old age. It beats the serpent 
as an emblem of immortality. While 
all the others of us in the garden rest 
and sit in comfort a moment^ upon the 
summit of the summer^, it is as rampant 
and vicious as ever. It accepts no 
armistice. 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 129 



FIFTEENTH WEEK. 

HTT is said that absence conquers all 
-^ things, love included ; but it has 
a contrary effect on a garden. I was 
absent for two or three weeks. I left 
my garden a paradise^ as paradises 
go in this protoplastic world ; and^ when 
I returned^ the trail of the serpent was 
over it all^ so to speak. (This is in 
addition to the actual snakes in it, which 
are large enough to strangle children of 
average size.) I asked Polly if she had 
seen to the garden while I was away^ 
and she said she had. I found. that all 
the melons had been seen to^ and the 
early grapes and pears. The green 
worm had also seen to about half the 
celery ; and a large flock of apparently 

9 



130 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

perfectly domesticated chickens ^ were 
roaming over the ground^ gossiping in 
the hot September sun^ and picking up 
any odd trifle that might be left.' On 
the whole^ the garden could not have 
been better seen to ; 'though it would 
take a sharp eye to see the potato-vines 
amid the rampant grass aiid weeds. 

The new strawberry-plantS;, for one 
thing; had taken advantage of my ab- 
sence.. Every one of them had sent out 
as many scarlet runners as an Indian 
tribe has. Some of them had blossomed ; 
and a few had gone so far as to bear 
ripe berries^ — long^ pear-shaped fruity 
hanging like the ear-pendants of an 
East-Indian bride. I could not but 
admire the persistence of these zealous 
plants^ which seemed determined to 
propagate themselves both by seeds 
and rootSj and make sure of immortality 
in some way. Even the Colfax variety 



MY SUMMER /xY A GARDEXi. 131 

was as ambitious as the others. After 
havino; seen the declining: letter of Mr. 
Colfax^ I did not suppose that this vine 
would run any more^ and intended to 
root it out. But one can never say 
what these politicians mean i and I shall 
let this, variety grovf until after the 
next election^, at least ; although I hear 
that the fruit is small^ and rather sour. 
If there is any variety of strawberries 
that really declines to run^ and devotes 
itself to a private life of fruit-bearings I 
should like to get it. I may mention 
here^ since we are on politics^ that the 
Doolittle raspberries had sprawled all 
over the strawberry-beds : so true is it 
that politics makes strange bed-fellows. 

But another enemy had come into the 
strawberries^ which; after all that has 
been said in these papers^ I am almost 
ashamed to mention. But does the 
preacher in the. pulpit^ Sunday after 



132 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN'. 

Sunday^ year after year^ shrink from 
speaking of sin ? I refer^ of course^ to the 
greatest enemy of mankind^ " p-sl-y." 
The ground was carpeted with it. I 
should think that this was the tenth 
crop of the season ; and it was as good 
as the first. I see no reason why our 
northern soil is not as prolific as that of 
the tropics^ and will not produce as 
many crops in the year. The mistake 
we make is in trying to force things 
that are not natural to it. I have no 
doubt, that, if we turn our attention to 
'^ pusley/' we can beat the world. 

I had no idea, until recently, how 
generally this simple and thrifty plant is 
feared and hated. Far beyond what I 
had regarded as the bounds of civiliza- 
tion, it is held as one of the mysteries 
of a fallen world ; accompanying the 
home missionary on his wanderings, and 
preceding the footsteps of the Tract 



3IY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 133 

Society. I was^ not long ago^, in the 
Aclirondacks. We had built a camp for 
the nighty in the heart of the woods^ 
high np on John's Brook^ and near the 
foot of Mount Marcy : I can see the 
lovely spot now. It was on the bank of 
the crystal, rocky stream, at the foot of 
high and slender falls, which poured 
into a broad amber basin. Out of this 
basin we had just taken trout enough 
for our supper, which had been killed, 
and roasted over the fire on sharp sticks, 
and eaten before they had an opportu- 
nity to feel the chill of this deceitful 
world. AYe were lying under the hut 
of spruce-bark, on fragrant hemlock- 
boughs, talking, after supper. In front 
of us was a huge fire of birch-logs ; and 
over it we could see the top of the falls 
glistening in the moonlight ; and the 
roar of the falls, and the brawling of the 
stream near us, filled all the ancient 



134 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

woods. It was a scene upon which one 
would think no thought of sin could 
enter. We were talking; with old 
PhelpSj the guide. Old Phelps is at 
once guide^ philosopher^ and friend. He 
knows the woods and streams and moun- 
tains^ and their savage inhabitants^ as 
well as we know all our rich relations^ 
and what they are doing j and^ in lonely 
bear-hunts and sable-trappings^ he has 
thoug-ht out and solved most of the 
problems of life. As he stands in his 
wood-gear^ he is as grizzly as an old cedar- 
tree ; and he speaks in a high falsetto 
voicC; which would be invaluable to a 
boatswain in a storm at sea. 

We had been talking of all subjects 
about which rational men are interest- 
edj — bearS; panthers^ trappings the hab- 
its of trout^ the tariff^ the internal revenue 
(to wit^ the injustice of laying such a tax 
on tobaccO;, and none on dogs : " There 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 135 

ain't no dog in the fZnitecI States/' says 
the guide^ at the top of his voice^ ^^ that 
earns his living "), the Adventists^ the 
Grorner Grat, Horace Greeley^ religion^ 
the propagation of seeds in the wilder- 
ness (as^ for instance^ where were the 
seeds lying for ages that spring np into 
certain plants and flowers as soon as a 
spot is cleared anywhere in the most 
remote forest ; and why does a growth 
of oak-trees always come up after a 
growth of pine has been removed ?) — 
in shorty we had pretty nearly reached a 
solution of many mysteries, when Phelps 
suddenly exclaimed with uncommon 
energy, — • 

'^ Wall, there's one thing that beats 
me!" 

" What's that ? " we asked with un- 
disguised curiosity. 

'^' That's ' pusley ' ! " he replied, in the 
tone of a man who has come to one 



136 MY SUMMER liV A GARDEN, 

door in life whicli is hopelessly shut^ and 
from wliicli he retires in despair. 

" Where it comes from I don't know^ 
nor what to do with it. It's in my 
garden; and I can't get rid of it. It 
beats me." 

Abont '^ pusley " the guide had no 
theory and no hope. A feeling of awe 
came over me, as we lay there at mid- 
nightj hushed by the sound of the 
stream and the rising wind in the spruce- 
tops. Then, man can go nowhere that 
'^ pusley " will not attend him. Though 
he camp on the Upper Au Sable, or 
penetrate the forest where rolls the 
AUegash, and hears no sound save his 
own allegations, he will not escape it. 
It has entered the happy valley of 
Keene, although there is yet no church 
there, and only a feeble school part of 
the year. Sin travels faster than they 
that ride in chariots. I take my hoe, 



MT SUMMER 7JV A GABDEN, 137 

and begin ; but I feel that I am warring 
against something whose roots take hold 
onH. 

By the time a man gets to be* eighty, 
he learns that he is compassed by limi- 
tations, and that there has been a 
natural boundary set to his individual 
powers. As he goes on in life, he begins 
to doubt his ability to destroy all evil 
and to reform all abuses, and to suspect 
that there will be much left, to do after 
he has done. I stepped into my garden 
in the spring, not doubting that I should 
be easily master of the weeds. I have 
simply learned that an institution which 
is at least six thousand years old, and I 
believe six millions, is not to be put 
down in one season. 

I have been digging my potatoes, if 
anybody cares to know it. I planted 
them in what are called " Early Rose," — 
the rows a little less than three feet 



138 MY SUMMER IN A^ GARDEN, 

apart ; but the vines came to an early 
close in the drought. Digging potatoes 
is a pleasant^ soothing occupation^ but 
not poetical. It is good for the mind, 
unless they are too small (as many of 
mine are) ; when it begets a want of 
gratitude to the bountiful earfli. What 
small potatoes we all are, compared 
with what we might be ! We don't 
plough deep enough, any of us, for one 
thing. I shall put in the plough next 
year, and give the tubers room enough. 
I think they felt the lack of it this year : 
many of them seemed ashamed to come 
out so small. There is great pleasure in 
turning out the brown-jacketed fellows 
into the sunshine of a royal September 
day, and seeing them glisten as they lie 
thickly strewn on the warm soil. Life has 
few such moments. But then they must 
be picked up. The picking-up, in this 
world, is always the unpleasant part of it. 



MT SUMMER AY A GARDEN, 139 



SIXTEENTH WEEK. 

nr DO not hold myself bound to answer 
"^ the question^, Does gardening pay? 
It is so difficult to define what is meant by 
paying. There is a popular notion^ that^ 
xmless a thing pays^ you had better let 
it alone ; and I may say that there is a 
pubHc opinion that will not let a man or 
woman continue in the indulgence of a 
fancy that does not pay. And public 
opinion is stronger than the legislature^ 
and nearly as strong as the ten com- 
mandments : I therefore yield to popu- 
lar clamor when I discuss the profit of 
my garden. 

As I look at 1^9 you might as well ask, 
Does a sunset pay ? I know that a sun- 
set is commonly looked on as a cheap 



140 3fY SUMMER IN A GABDEN, 

entertainment; but it is really one of 
the most expensive. It is true that we 
can all have front seats^ and we do not 
exactly need to dress for it as we do for 
the opera; but the conditions under 
which it is to be enjoyed are rather 
dear. Among them I should name a 
good suit of clothes^ including some 
trifling ornament^ — not including back 
hair for one sex^ or the parting of it in 
the middle for the other. I should add 
also a good dinner^ well cooked and di- 
gestible ; and the cost of a fair educa- 
tion^ extended; perhaps^ through genera- 
tions in which sensibility and love of 
beauty grew. What I mean is^ that if 
a man is hungry and naked ^ and half a 
savage^ or with the love of beauty un- 
developed in him^ a sunset is thrown 
away on him : so that it appears that the 
conditions of the enjoyment of a sunset 
are as costly as any thing in our civili- 
zation. 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN-. 141 

Of course, there is no such thing as 
absolute value in this world. You can 
only estimate what a thing is worth to 
you. Does gardening in a city pay ? 
You might as well ask if it pays to keep 
hens^ or a trotting-horse, or to wear a 
gold ring, or to keep your lawn cut, or 
your hair cut. It is as you like it. In 
a certain sense, it is a sort of profana- 
tion to consider if my garden pays, or 
to set a money- value upon my delight 
in it. I fear that you could not put it 
in money. Job had the right idea in his 
mind, when he asked, "^^Is there any 
taste in the white of an egg ? " Sup- 
pose there is not ! What ! shall I set a 
price upon the tender asparagus or the 
crisp lettuce, which made the sweet 
spring a reality ? Shall I turn into mer- 
chandise the red strawberry, the pale 
green pea, the high-flavored raspberry, 
the sanguinary beet, that love-plant the 



142 MY summeu in a garden. 

tomato^ and the corn which did not 
waste its sweetness on the desert air, 
but, after flowing in a sweet rill through 
all our summer life, mingled at last with 
the engaging bean in a pool of succo- 
tash ? Shall I compute in figures what 
daily freshness and health and delight 
the garden yields, let alone the large 
crop of anticipation I gathered as soon 
as the first seeds got above ground ? 
I appeal to any gardening man of sound 
mind, if that which pays him best in 
gardening is not that which he cannot 
show in his trial-balance. Yet I yield 
to public opinion, when I proceed to 
make such a balance ; and I do it with 
the utmost confidence in figures. 

I select as a representative vegetable, 
in order to estimate the cost of garden- 
ing, the potato. In my statement, I 
shall not include the interest on the 
value of the land. I throw in the land, 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 143 

because it would othermse have stood 
idle : the thing generally raised on city 
land is taxes. I therefore make the fol- 
lowing statement of the cost and income 
of my potato-crop;, a part of it esti- 
mated in connection with other garden 
labor. I have tried to mak^ it so as to 
satisfy the income-tax collector : — 

Dr. 

Ploughing $0.50 

Seed..... 1.50 

Manure 8.00 

Assistance in planting and digging, 3 days 6.75 
Labor of self in planting, hoeing, digging, 

picking up, 5 days at 17 cents .85 

Total cost ,, . $17.60 

Cr, 

Two thousand five hundred mealy potatoes, 

at 2 cents $50.00 

Small potatoes given to neighbor's pig ... .50 



9 



Total return $50.50 

Balance, profit in cellar $32.90 

Some of these items need explana- 
tion. I have charged nothing for my 



144 3IY SUMMER IJV A GARDEN. 

o^\n time waiting for the potatoes to 
grow. My time in hoeing^ fighting 
weeds^ &c.^ is put in at five clays : it 
may have been a little more. Nor have 
I put in any thing for cooling drinks 
while hoeing;. I leave this out from 
principle^, because I always recommend 
water to others. I had some difficulty 
in fixing the rate of my own wages. It 
was the first time that I had an oppor- 
tunity of paying what I thought labor 
was worth ; and I determined to make 
a good thing of it for once. I figured 
it right clown to European prices^ — 
seventeen cents a day for unskilled la- 
bor. Of course^ I boarded myself. I 
ought to say that I fixed the wages 
after the work was clone, or I might 
have been tempted to do as some ma- 
sons did who worked for me at four 
dollars a day. They lay in the shade 
and slept the sleep of honest toil full 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 145 

half the time^ — at least all the time 
I was away. I have reason to believe^ 
that when the wages of mechanics are 
raised to eight and ten dollars a day^ 
the workmen will not come at all : they 
wUl merely send their cards. 

I do not see any possible fault in the 
above figures. I ought to say that I de- 
ferred pufting a value on the potatoes 
until I had footed up the debit column. 
This is always the safest way to do. I 
had twenty-five bushels. I roughly es- 
timated that there are one hundred 
good ones to the bushel. Making my 
own market-price^ I asked two cents 
apiece for them. This I should have 
considered dirt cheap last June^, when I 
was going down the rows with the hoe. 
If any one thinks that two cents each is 
highj let him try to raise them. 

Nature is ^^ awful smart." I intend to 
be complimentary in saying so. She 

10 



146 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

shows it in little things. I have men- 
tioned my attempt to put in a few mod- 
est turnips^ near the close of the season. 
I sowed the seeds^ by the way^ in the most 
liberal manner. Into three or four short 
rows I presume I put enough to sow an 
acre ; and they all came up, — came 
up as thick as grass, as crowded and 
useless as babies in a Chinese village. 
Of course, they had to be thinned out ; 
that is, pretty much all pulled up ; and 
it took me a long time ; for it takes a 
conscientious man some time to decide 
which are the best and healthiest plants 
to spare. After all, I spared too many. 
That is the great danger everywhere in 
this world (it may not be in the next) ; 
things are too thick : we lose all in grasp- 
ing for too much. The Scotch say, that 
no man ouo;lit to thin out his own tur- 
nips, because he will not sacrifice enough 
to leave room for the remainder to grow : 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 147 

he should get his neighbor, who does not 
(fere for the plants, to do it. But this is 
mere talk, and aside from the point : if 
there is any thing I desire to avoid in 
these agricultural papers, it is digression. 
I did think, that putting in these tur- 
nips so late in the season, when general 
activity has ceased, and in a remote part 
of the garden, they would pass un- 
noticed. But Nature never even winks, 
as I can see. The tender blades were 
scarcely out of the ground, when she 
sent a small black fly, which seemed to 
have been born and held in reserve for 
this purpose, — to cut the leaves. They 
speedily made lace-work of the whole 
bed. Thus every thing appears to have 
its special enemy, — except, perhaps, 

p y : nothing ever troubles that. 

Did the Concord Grape ever come to 
more luscious perfection than this year ? 
or yield so abundantly ? The golden 



148 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

sunshine has passed into them^ and dis- 
tended their purple skins almost fo 
bursting. Such heavy clusters! such 
bloom ! such sweetness ! such meat and 
drink in their round globes! What a 
fine fellow Bacchus would have been^ if 
he had only signed the pledge when he 
was a young man! I have taken ofi* 
clusters that were as compact and al- 
most as large as the Black Hamburgs. 
It is slow work picking them. I do not 
see how the gatherers for the vintage 
ever get off enough. It takes so long 
to disentangle the bunches from the 
leaves^ and the interlacing vines^ and the 
supporting tendrils ; and then I like to 
hold up each bunch and look at it in the 
sunlight^ and get the fragrance and the 
bloom of it; and show it to PoUy^ who is 
making herself useful^ as taster and com- 
paniouj at the foot of the ladder^ before 
dropping it into the basket. But we 



MY SUMMER JiY A GARDEN. 149 

have other company. The robin^ the 
most knowing and greedy bird out of 
paradise (I trust he mil always be kept 
out);, has discovered that the grape-crop 
is uncommonly good^ and has come back^ 
with his whole tribe and family^ larger 
than it was in pea-time. He knows the 
ripest bunches as well as anybody^ and 
tries them all. If he would take a whole 
bunch here and there^ say half the num- 
ber^ and be off with it^ I should not so 
much care. But he will not. He pecks 
away at all the bunches^ and spoils as 
many as he can. It is time he went 
south. 

There is no prettier sight, to my eye, 
than a gardener on a ladder in his grape- 
arbor, in these golden days, selecting 
the heaviest clusters of grapes, and 
handing them down to one and another 
of a group of neighbors and friends, who 
stand under the shade of the leaves, 



150 ' MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

flecked with the smilight^ and cry, '^ How 
sweet ! " ^' Yrhat nice ones ! " and the 
like, — remarks encouraging to the man 
on the kdder. It is great pleasure to 
see people eat grapes. 

Moral Truth. — I have no doubt that 
grapes taste best in other peoples' 
mouths. It is an old notion that it is 
easier to be generous than to be stingy. 
I am convinced that the majority of peo- 
ple would be generous from selfish mo- 
tives, if they had the opportunity. 

Pliilosojjhical Observation. — Nothing 
shows one who his friends are, like pros- 
perity and ripe fruit. I had a good 
friend in the country, whom I almost 
never ^dsited except in cherry-time. 
By yom^ fruits you shall know them. 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 151 



SEVENTEENTH WEEK. 

T" like to go into the garden these 
-^ warm latter days^ and muse. To muse 
is to sit in the sun^. and not think of 
any thing. I am not sure but goodness 
comes out of people who bask in the 
suU;, as it does out of a sweet apple 
roasted before the fire. The late Sep- 
tember and October sun of this latitude 
is something like the sun of extreme 
Lower Italy : you can stand a good deal 
of it^ and apparently soak a winter sup- 
ply into the system. If one only could 
take in his mnter fuel in this way ! The 
next great discovery will^ very likely^ be 
the conservation of sunlight. In the 
correlation of forces, I look to see the 
day when the superfluous sunshine will 



152 MY SUMMER IIST A GARDEN, 

be utilized ; as^ for instance^ that which 
has burned up my celery this year will 
be converted into a force to work the 
garden. 

This sitting in the sun amid the 
evidences of a ripe year is the easiest 
part of gardening I have experienced. 
But what a combat has gone on here ! 
What vegetable passions have run the 
whole gamut of ambition^ selfishness^ 
greed of place^ fruition^ satiety ;, and now 
rest here in the truce of exhaustion ! 
What a battle-field^ if one may look 
upon it so ! The corn has lost its ammu- 
nition, and stacked arms in a slovenly, 
mihtia sort of style. The ground vines 
are torn^, trampled^ and withered ; and 
the ungathered cucumbers^ worthless 
melons^ and golden squash es^ lie about 
like the spent bombs and exploded 
shells of a battle-field. So the cannon- 
balls lay on the sandy plain before Fort 



. MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 153 

Fisher^ after the capture. So the great^ 
grassy meadow at Munich^ any morning 
during the October Fest^ is strewn with 
the empty beer-mugs. History con- 
stantly repeats itself. There is a large 
crop of moral reflections in my garden^ 
which anybody is at liberty to gather 
who passes this way. 

I have tried to get in any thing that 
offered temptation to sin. There would 
be no thieves if there was nothing to 
steal ; and I suppose^ in the thieves' 
catechism, the provider is as bad as the 
thief; and, probably, I am to blame for 
leaving out a few winter-pears, which 
some predatory boy carried off on Sun- 
day. At first, I was angry, and said I 
should like to have caught the urchin in 
the act ; but, on second thought, I was 
glad I did not. The interview could 
not have been pleasant. I shouldn't 
have known what to do with him. The 



154 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

chances are^ that he would have escaped 
away w^ith his pockets full, and jibed at 
me from a safe distance. And^ if I had 
got my hands on him^ I should have 
been still more embarrassed. If I had 
flogged hini; he would have got over it 
a good deal sooner than I should. That 
sort of boy does not mind castigation 
any more than he does tearing his 
trousers in the briers. If I had treated 
him with kindness^, and conciliated him 
with grapeSj showing him the enormity 
of his offence ;, I suppose he would have 
come the next nighty and taken the re- 
mainder of the grapes. The truth is^ 
that the public morality is lax on the 
subject of fruit. If anybody puts 
arsenic or gunpowder into his water- 
melons^ he is universally denounced as 
a stingy old murderer by the commu- 
nity. A great many people regard 
growing fruit as lawful prey^ who would 



3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 155 

not think of breaking into j^our cellar to 
take it. I found a man once in my 
raspbeny-busheS; early in the season^ 
when we were waitini;^ for a clish-full to 
ripen. Upon inquiring what he was 
about^ he said he was only eating some ; 
and the operation seemed to be so natu- 
ral and simple, that I disliked to disturb 
him. And I am not very sure that one 
has a right to the whole of *an abundant 
crop of fruit until he has gathered it. 
At least, in a city garden, one might as 
well conform his theory to the practice 
of the community. 

As for children (and it sometimes 
looks as if the chief products of my 
garden w^ere small boys and hens), it is 
admitted that they are barbarians. There 
is no e:^ception among them to this 
condition of barbarism. This is not to 
say that they are not attractive ; for 
they have the virtues as well as the 



156 MY SUMMER IN A GAUDEN, 

vices of a primitive people. It is held 
by some naturalists^, that the child is 
only a zoophyte , with a stomachy and 
feelers radiating from it in search of 
something to fill it. It is true that a 
child is always hungry all over : but he 
is also curious all over ; and his curiosity is 
excited about as early as his hunger. 
He immediately begins to put out his 
moral feelers into the unknown and the 
infinite to discover what sort of an 
existence this is into which he has come. 
His imagination is quite as hungry as 
his stomach. And again and again it is 
stronger than his other appetites. You 
can easily engage his imagination in a 
story Y>diich will make him forget his 
dinner. He is credulous and supersti- 
tious^ and open to all wonder.- In this^ 
he is exactly like the savage races. 
Both gorge themselves on the marvel- 
lous ; and all the unknown is marvellous 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 157 

to them. I loiow the general hnpression 
is^ that children must be governed 
through their stomachs. I think they 
can be controlled quite as well through 
their curiosity ; that being the more crav- 
ing and imperious of the two. I have 
seen children follow about a person who 
told them stories^ and interested them 
with his charming talk^ as greedily as if 
his pockets had been full of hon-hons. 

Perhaps this fact has no practical re- 
lation to gardening ; but it occurs to 
me^ that^ if I should paper the outside of 
my high board fence mth the leaves of 
" The Arabian Nights/' it would afford me 
a good deal of protection^ — more^ in fact^ 
than spikes in the top, which tear trou- 
sers, and encourage profanity, but do not 
save much fruit. A spiked fence is a 
challenge to any boy of spirit. But, if 
the fence were papered with fairy-tales, 
would he not stop to read them until it 



158 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

was too late for him to climb into the 
garden ? I don't know. Human nature 
is vicious. The boy might regard the 
picture of the garden of the Hesperi- 
des only as an advertisement of what 
was over the fence. I begin to find that 
the problem of raising fruit is nothing 
to that of getting it after it has matured. 
So long as the laW; just in many re- 
spectS; is in force against shooting birds 
and small boys^ the gardener may sow in 
tears and reap in vain. 

The power of a boy is^ to me^ some- 
thing fearful. Consider what he can do. 
You buy and set out a choice pear- 
tree ; you enrich the earth for it; you 
train and trim it/ and vanquish the 
borer^ and watch its slow growth. At 
length it rewards your care by produ- 
cing two or three pears^, which you cut 
up and divide in the family^ declaring 
the flavor of the bit you eat to be some- 



MY SUMMER IS A GABDEX. 159 

tiling exti'aorclinary. Tlie next year^ 
the Kttle tree blossoms full, and sets 
well ; and in the antnmn has on its slen- 
der, drooping limbs half a bushel of 
fruit, dailv o-rowino: more delicious in the 
sun. You show it to your friends, read- 
ino^ to them the French name, which vou 
can never remember^ on the label ; and 
YOU take an honest pride in thesuccess- 
frJ fruit of long: care. That niQ:ht vour 
pears shall be recjuired of you by a boy ! 
Along comes an irresponsible urchin, 
who has not been erowino; much lono^er 
than the tree.y^th not twenty-fiye cents' 
worth of clothino^ on him. and in five 
minutes takes off every pear, and retires 
into safe obscurity. Li five minutes, the 
remorseless bov has undone vour work 
of years, and with the easy nonclialancej 
I doubt not; of any agent of fate, in 
whose path nothing is sacred or safe. 
And it is not of much consequence. 



160 3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

The boy goes on his way^ — to Congress^ 
or to State Prison : in either place he 
will be accused of stealings perhaps 
wrongfully. You learn^ in time^ that it 
is better to have had pears and lost 
them^ than not to have had pears at all. 
You come to know that the least (and 
rarest) part of the pleasure of raising 
fruit is the vulp:ar eating; it. You 
recall your delight in conversing with 
the nurserjrman^ and looking at his il- 
lustrated catalogues^ where all the pears 
are drawn perfect in form^ and of extra 
size^ and at that exact moment between 
ripeness and decay which it is so impos- 
sible to hit in practice. Fruit cannot be 
raised on this earth to taste as you 
imagine those pears would taste. For 
years you have this pleasure^, unalloyed 
by any disenchanting reality. How you 
watch the tender fmgs in spring/ and 
the freshly-forming bark^, hovering about 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN-, 161 

the healthy growing tree with your 
pruning-knife many a sunny morning ! 
That is happiness. Then^ if you know 
it, you are drinking the very wine of 
life ; and when the sweet juices of the 
earth mount the limbs, and flow down 
the tender stem, ripening and reddening 
the pendent fruit, you feel that you 
somehow stand at the source of things, 
and have no imimportant share in the 
processes of Nature. Enter, at this mo- 
ment, boy the destroyer, whose office 
is that of preserver as well ; for, though 
he removes the fruit from your sight, it 
remains in your memory immortally ripe 
and desirable. The gardener needs all 

these consolations of a high philosophy. 
11 



162 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



EIGHTEENTH WEEK. 

"O EGRETS are idle; yet history 'is 
-^^ one long regret. Every thing 
might have turned out so diflferently! 
If Ravaillac had not been imprisoned 
for debt^ he would not have stabbed 
Henry of Navarre. If William of 
Orange had escaped assassination by 
Philip's emissaries; if France had fol- 
lowed the French Calvin^ and embraced 
Protestant Calvinism;, as it came very 
near doing towards the end of the six- 
teenth century ; if the Contmental 
ammunition had not given out at Bun- 
ker's Hill ; if Blucher had not '^ come 
up" at Waterloo — the lesson is^ that 
things do not come up unless they are 
planted. When you go behind the his- 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN^ 163 

torical scenery^ you find there is a rope 
and pulley to effect every transforma- 
tion which has astonished you. It was 
the rascality of a minister and a con- 
tractor five years before that lost the 
battle ] and the cause of the defeat was 
worthless ammunition. I should like to 
know how many wars have been caused 
by fits of indigestion^ and how many 
more dynasties have been upset by the 
love of woman than by the hate of 
man. It is only because we are ill in- 
formed that any thing surprises us ; 
and we are disappointed because we 
expect that for which we have not pro- 
vided. 

I had too vague expectations of what 
my garden would do of itself. A 
garden ought to produce one every 
things — just as a business ought to sup- 
port a man^ and a house ought to keep 
itself. We had a convention lately to 



164 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

resolve that tlie house should keep 
itself; but it won't. There has been a 
lively time in our garden this summer ; 
but it seems to me there is very little to 
show for it. It has been a terrible 
campaign ; but where is the indemnity ? 
Where are all "^^sass"" and Lorraine? 
It is true that we have lived on the 
country ; but we desire^ besides^ the 
fruits of the war. There are no onions^ 
for one thing. I am quite ashamed to 
take people into my garden^ and have 
them notice the absence of onions. It 
is very marked. In onion is Strength ; 
and a garden without it lacks flavor. 
The onion in its satin wrappings is 
among the most beautiful of vegetables; 
and it is the only one that represents 
the essence of things. It can almost be 
said to have a soul. You take off coat 
after coat^ and the onion is still there ; 
and; when the last one is removed, who 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 165 

dare say that the onion itself is de- 
strojed^ though you can weep over its 
departed spirit ? If there is any one 
thinof on this fallen earth that the ana-els 
in heaven weep over more than another^ 
it is the onion. 

I know that there is supposed to be a 
prejudice against the onion ; but I 
think there is rather a cowardice in 
regard to it. I doubt not that all men 
and women love the onion ; but few 
confess their love. Affection for it is 
concealed. Good New-Englanders are 
as shy of owning it as they are of talk- 
ing about religion. Some people have 
days on which they eat onions^ — what 
you might call '^ retreats/' or their 
^^ Thursdays." The act is in the nature 
of a religious ceremony^ an Eleusinian 
mystery : not a breath of it must get 
abroad. On that day^ they see no 
company 5 they deny the kiss of greet- 



166 MY SUMMEB IN A GARDEN. 

ing to the dearest friend; they retire 
■within themselves^ and hold communion 
with one of the most pungent and pene- 
trating manifestations of the moral 
vegetable World. Happy is said to be 
the family which can eat onions to- 
gether. They are^ for the time being, 
separate from the worlds and have a 
harmony of aspiration. There is a hint 
here for the reformers. Let them 
become apostles of the onion ; let them 
eat, and preach it to their fellows, and 
circulate tracts of it in the form of 
seeds. In the onion is the hope of 
universal brotherhood. If all men will 
eat onions at all times, they will come 
into a universal sympathy. Look at 
Italy. I hope I am not mistaken as to 
the cause of her unity. It was the 
Reds who preached the gospel which 
made it possible. All the Reds of 
Europe, all the sworn devotees of the 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 167 

mystic Mary Ann^ eat of the common 
vegetable. Their oaths are strong with 
it. It is the food^ also^ of the common 
people of Italy. All the social atmos- 
phere of that delicious land is laden 
with it. Its odor is a practical democ- 
racy. In the churches all are alike : 
there is one faith^ one smell. The 
entrance of Victor Emanuel into Eome 
is only the pompous proclamation of a 
unity which garlic had already accom- 
phshed ; and yet we^ who boast of our 
democracy^ eat onions in secret. 

I now see that I have left out many 
of the most moral elements. Neither 
onions^ parsnips^, carrots^ nor cabbages 
are here. I have never seen a garden 
in the autumn before^ without the un- 
couth cabbage in it j but my garden 
gives the impression of a garden with- 
out a head. The cabbage is the rose of 
Holland. I admire the force by which it 



168 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

compacts its crisp leaves into a solid 
head. The secret of it would be price- 
less to the world. "We should see less 
expansive foreheads with nothing within. 
Even the largest cabbages are not always 
the best. But I mention these things, 
not from any sympathy I have with the 
vegetables named;, but to show how hard 
it is to go contrary to the expectations 
of society. Society expects every man 
to have certain things in his garden. 
Not to raise cabbage is as if one had no 
pew in church. Perhaps we shall come 
some day to free churches and free gar- 
dens ; when I can show my neighbor 
through my tired garden, at the end of 
the season, when skies are overcast, and 
brown leaves are swirling down, and not 
mind if he does raise his eyebrows when 
he observes, ^^Ah ! I see you have none of 
this, and of that." At present, we want 
the moral courage to plant only what we 



MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 169 

need ] to spend only what Trill bring us 
peace; regardless of what is going on 
over the fence. We are half ruined by 
conformity j but we should be wholly 
ruined without it : and I presume I shall 
make a garden next year that will be as 
popular as possible. 

. And this brings me to what I see may 
be a crisis in life. I beain to feel the 
temptation of experiment. Agriculture, 
horticulture^ floriculture^ — these are vast 
fields, into which one may wander away, 
and never be seen more. It seemed to 
me a very simple thing, this gardening ; 
but it opens up astonishingly. ^ It is 
like the infinite possibiUties in worsted- 
work. Polly sometimes says to me, '' I 
wish you would call at Bobbin's, and 
match that skein of worsted for me when 
vou are in town." Time was I used to 
accept such a commission with alacrity 
and self-confidence. I went to Bobbin's, 



170 3fY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

and asked one of his young men^ with 
easy indifference^ to give me some of 
that. The young man^ who is as hand- 
some a young man as ever I looked at^ 
and who appears to own the shop^ and 
whose suave superciliousness would be 
worth every thing to a cabinet minister 
who wanted to repel applicants for 
place^ says^ '' I haven't an ounce : I have 
sent to Paris^ and I expect it every day. 
I have a good deal of difficulty in get- 
ting that shade in my assortment." To 
think that he is in communication with 
Paris, and perhaps with Persia! Re- 
spect for such a being gives place to awe. 
I go to another shop, holding fast to my 
scarlet clew. There I am shown a heap 
of stuff;, with more colors and shades 
than I had supposed existed in all the 
world. What a blaze of distraction ! I 
have been told to get as near the shade 
as I could ; and so I compare and con- 



MY SUMMER m A GABDEN, 171 

trast, till the whole thing seems to me 
about of one color. But I can settle my 
mind on nothing. The affair assumes a 
high degree of importance. I am satis- 
fied with nothing but perfection. I 
don't know what may happen if the 
shade is not matched. I go to another 
shop^ and another^ and another. At last 
a pretty girl^ who could make any cus- 
tomer believe that green is blue, 
matches the shade in a minute. I buy 
five cents' worth. That was the order. 
Women are the most economical persons 
that ever were. I have spent two hours 
in this five-cent business ; but who shall 
say they were wasted, when I take the 
stuff home, and Polly says it is a perfect 
match, and looks so pleased, and holds it 
up with the work, at arm's-length, and 
turns her head one side, and then takes 
her needle, and works it in ? Working in, 
I can see, my own obligingness and 



172 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN 

amiability with every stitch. Five cents 
is dirt cheap for such a pleasure. 

The things I may do in my garden 
multiply on my vision. How fascinating 
have the catalogues of the nurserymen 
become ! Can I raise all those beautiful 
varieties^ each one of which is prefera- 
ble to the other? Shall I try all the 
kinds of grapes^ and all the sorts of 
pears ? I have already fifteen varieties 
of strawberries (vines) ] and I have no 
idea that I have hit the right one. 
Must I subscribe to all the magazines 
and weekly papers which offer premiums 
of the best vines ? Oh that all the 
strawberries were rolled into one^ that I 
could enclose all its lusciousness in one 
bite ! Oh for the good old days when 
a strawberry was a strawberry^ and there 
was no perplexity about it ! There are 
more berries now than churches ; and 
no one knows what to believe. I have 



MY SUMMER AY A GARDEN, 173 

seen gardens which were all experiment^ 
given over to every .new things and 
which produced little or nothing to the 
owners^ except the pleasure of expecta- 
tion. People grow pear-trees at great 
expense of time and money ^ which never 
yield them more than four pears to the 
tree. The fashions of ladies' bonnets 
are nothing to the fashions of nursery- 
men. He who attempts to follow them 
has a business for life ; but his life may 
lie short. If I enter upon this wide 
field of horticultural experiment^ I shall 
leave peace behind ; and I may expect 
the ground to open^ and swallow me and 
all my fortune. May Heaven keep me 
to the old roots and herbs of my fore- 
fathers ! Perhaps^ in the world of mod- 
ern reforms^ this is not possible ; but I 
intend now to cultivate only the stand-' 
ard things^ and learn to talk knowingly 
of the rest. Of course^ one must keep 



174 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

up a reputation. I have seen people 
greatly enjoy themselves^ and elevate 
themselves in their own esteem, in a 
wise and critical talk about all the 
choice wines, while they were sipping a 
decoction, the original cost of which 
bore no relation to the price of grapes. 



MY SUMMER I2i A GARDEN. 175 



NINETEENTH WEEK. 

r i ^HE closing scenes are not necessa- 
■^ rily funereal. A garden should 
be got ready for winter as well as for 
summer. When one goes into winter- 
quarters^ he wants every thing neat and 
trig. Expecting high winds^, we bring 
every thing into close reef. Some men 
there are who never shave (if they are 
so absurd as ever to shave)^ except when 
they go abroad^ and who do not take 
care to wear polished boots in the bosoms 
of their families. I like a man who 
shaves (next to one who doQsn't shave) 
to satisfy his own conscience; and not for 
display, and who dresses as neatly at 
home as he does anywhere. Such a man 
will be likely to put his garden in com- 



176 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

plete order before the snow comes^ so 
that its last days shall not present a scene 
of melancholy ruin and decay. 

I confess^ that^ after such an exhaust- 
ing campaign^ I felt a great temptation 
to retire^ and call it a drawn engage- 
ment. But better counsels prevailed. 
I determined that the weeds should not 
sleep on the field of battle. I routed 
them out^ and levelled their works. \ am 
master of the situation. If I have made 
a desert;, I at least have peace ; but it is 
not quite a desert. The strawberries^ 
the raspberries^, the celery^ the turnips^ 
wave green above the clean earthy with 
no enemy in sight. In these golden 
October days^, no work is more fascinating 
than this getting ready for spring. The 
sun is no longer a burning enemy^ but a 
friend;, illuminating all the open space, 
and warming the mellow soil. And the 
pruning and clearing-away of rubbish; 



MY SUMMER ly A GARDEN. Ill 

and the fertilizing, go on with something 
of the hilarity of a wake, rather than 
the despondency of other funerals. 
When the wind begins to come out of 
the north-west of set purpose, and to 
sweep the ground with low and search- 
ing fierceness, very different from the 
roystering, jolly bluster of early fall^ I 
have put the strawberries under their 
coverlet of leaves, pruned the grape-^ 
vines and laid them under the soil, tied 
up the tender plants, given the fruit- 
trees a good, solid meal about the roots ; 
and so I tmm away, writing Besitrgam 
on the gate-post. \ And Calvin, aware 
that the summer is past and the harvest 
is ended, and that a mouse in the kitchen 
is worth two birds gone south, scampers 
away to the house with his tail in the 
air. 

And yet I am not perfectly at rest in 
my mind. I know that this is only a 

12 



178 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 

truce until the parties recover their ex- 
hausted energies. All winter long^ the 
forces of chemistry will be mustering 
under groimd; repairing the losses^ call- 
ing up the reserves^ getting new 
strength from my surface - fertilizing 
bounty^ and making ready for the spring 
campaign. They will open it before I 
am ready : while the snow is scarcely 
melted^ and the ground is not passable, 
they will begin to move on my works ; 
and the fight will commence. Yet how 
deceitfully it will open to the music of 
birds and the soft enchantment of the 
spring mornings ! I shall even be per- 
mitted to win a few skirmishes : the 
secret forces will even wait for me to 
plant and sow, and show my full hand, 
before they come on in heavy and de- 
termined assault. There are already 
signs of an internecine fight with the 
devil-grass, which has intrenched itself 



3fY SUMMER m A GARDEN, 179 

in a considerable portion of my garden- 
patch. It contests the ground inch by 
inch ; and digging it out is very much 
such labor as eating a piece of choke- 
cherry-pie with the stones all in. It is 
work^ too, that I know by experience I 
shall have to do alone. Every man 
must eradicate his own devil-grass. The 
neighbors who have leisure to help you 
in grape -picking time are all busy when 
devil-grass is most aggressive. My 
neighbors' visits are well timed : it is 
only their hens which have all seasons 
for their own. 

I am told that abundant and rank 
weeds are signs of a rich soil; but I 
have noticed that a thin^ poor soil 
grows little but weeds. I am inclined 
to think that the substratum is the same^ 
and that the only choice in this world is 
what kind of weeds you will have. I 
am not much attracted by the gaunt^ 



180 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN, 

flavorless mullein; and the wiry thistle 
of upland country pastures^ where the 
grass is always gray^ as if the world Avere 
already weary and sick of life. The 
awkward; uncouth wickedness of •remote 
country-placeS; where culture has died 
out after the first crop; is about as dis- 
ao-reeable as the ranker and richer vice 
of city lifC; forced by artificial heat and 
the juices of an overfed civilization. 
There is no doubt; that; on the- whole, 
the rich soil is the best : the fruit of it 
has body and flavor. To what affluence 
does a woman (to take an instance; thank 
HeaveU; which is common) grow, with 
favoring circumstances; under the stim- 
ulus of the richest social and intellec- 
tual influences ! I am aware that there 
hag been a good deal said in poetry 
about the fringed gentian and the hare- 
bell of rocky districts and waysideS; and 
I know that it is possible for maidens to 



MY SUMMER IN A GABDEN. 181 

bloom in very slight soil into a wild- 
wood grace and beauty ; yet^ the world 
through;, they lack that wealth of 
charms^ that tropic affluence of both 
person and mind^ which higher and more 
stimulating culture brings: — the pas- 
sion as well as the soul glowing in the 
Cloth-of-Gold rose. Neither persons nor 
plants are ever fully themselves until 
they are cultivated to their highest. I^ 
for one^ have no fear that society will be 
too much enriched. The only question 
is about keeping down the weeds ; and 
I have learned by experience^ that we 
need new sorts of hoes^ and more dis- 
position to use them. 

Moral Deduction. — The difference be- 
tween soil and society is evident. We 
bury decay in the earth ; we plant in it 
the perishing ; we feed it with offensive 
refuse : but nothing grows out of it that 
is not clean; it gives us back life and 



182 MY SUMMER JJV A GARDEN. 

beauty for our rubbish. Society returns 
us what we give it. 

Pretending to reflect upon these 
things^ but^ in reality^ watching the blue- 
jays^ who are pecking at the purple ber- 
ries of the woodbine on the south gable^ 
I approach the house. Polly is picking 
up chestnuts on the sward^, regardless of 
the high wind^ which rattles them about 
her head and upon the glass roof of her 
winter-garden. The garden^ I see, is 
filled with thrifty plants, which will 
make it always summer there. The cal- 
las about the fountain will be in flower 
by Christmas : the plant appears to 
keep that holiday in her secret heart all 
summer. I close the outer windows as 
we go along, and congratulate myself 
that we are ready for winter. For the 
winter-garden T have no responsibility : 
Polly has entire charge of it. I am 
only required to keep it heated, and not 



3IT SUMMER ly A GARDEN, 183 

too hot either ; to* smoke it often for the 
death of the bugs ; to water it once a 
day ; to move this and that into the snn 
and out of the sun pretty constantly: 
but she does all the work. We never 
relinquish that theory. 

As we pass around the house^ I dis- 
cover a boy in the ravine^ filling a bag 
with chestnuts and hickory-nuts. They 
are not plenty this year ; and I suggest 
the propriety of leaving some for us. 
The boy is a little slow to take the idea : 
but he has apparently found the picking 
poor^ and "exhausted it; for^ as he turns 
away down the glen^ he hails me with^ — 

" ]\Iister^ I say^ can you tell me where 
I can find some walnuts ? " 

The coolness of this world grows upon 
me. It is time to go in and light a 
wood-fire on the hearth. 



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